And May's running is over

Yesterday at about mile 6 of my planned 18-mile run, my right foot started hurting in the area where all your toe joints come into the foot. I’ve never felt that before, and I hadn’t fallen or tripped or anything. I wasn't sure what to think but honestly, you get little pains all the time while running and usually they just go away, they’re nothing. So I kept going.

But my foot kept hurting. Oddly it hurt more running uphill than down (I love running uphill), and by about mile 7.5 I thought well I’ll get to the house and see if it’s a muscle spasm (my route took me by my house at about mile 10 so I could get a sip of water if needed).

But by mile 9.5 I knew I wasn’t going to get all 18 miles in, I hurt too much. So I got home (which was just over 10 miles total), took off my shoes and started to gently massage the bottom of my foot only I couldn’t—it hurt so much that I gasped and got tears in my eyes. I knew I needed to get it checked so I took a painful shower (hard to take a shower on one leg but I’ve had a lot of experience doing that from when I broke my pelvis) and then Kent drove me to the orthopedic urgent care clinic, the same one I went to when I fractured my pelvis, talk about a bad deja vu.

Long story not so long, I broke my foot; specifically, the third metatarsal. The break was clearly visible on the x-ray and I was devastated because I knew what that meant. I asked anyway, how long do breaks like these take to heal? Six to eight weeks, she said. She put me in a boot, gave me discharge instructions (elevate the foot, ice, Tylenol as needed, the orthopedist will call with a follow up appointment in 10 to 14 days).

So. No Grandma’s Marathon this summer. No more running in May, probably not much in June, and once again I will need to rebuild my running stamina etc.

This weekend has been a real low point for me. I keep randomly tearing up because this marathon meant so much to me and I was making amazing progress. I hope this is just a freaky random fracture and means nothing in terms of the osteoporosis (which by the way, I have been taking meds for) or a possible metastasis to bone from the breast cancer.

Not sure what to do . . . any runners want to weigh in?

I'm still having issues with my heart rate while running. Last week, I got in just one so-called normal run on October 29 where my heart rate behaved. I tried two more times but ended up stopping almost immediately because of the spikes.

No heart issues w/ HIIT

Thing is, I signed up for a 10K this Saturday, and spent the money for VIP access. This race is held in a large park, and it's where the Great Plains 10K was in September. There were not nearly enough Porta Potties so I spent the money to get to the extra ones, plus a heated tent. So it would pain me greatly to lose the money without having had the fun of a race.

However, in addition to my heart rate spiking, now my blood pressure is doing wonky things. It's high for me: 148/72. I'm normally no more than 110 on the top number and in the low 60s for the bottom number. So this is definitely high.

The other oddity is that I've done HIIT this week with zero heart rate issues. I mean I'm going hard, very breathless and sweaty and my heart just clocks along in the 130s. I would suspect cadence lock for my heart rate while running only a week ago, I bit the bullet and got a chest heart rate monitor and it's showing the same spikes when I run.

The heart rate spikes may still be from tamoxifen. I'm four weeks out and it's one that hangs around. My blood pressure may be due to Prolia as this is a known side effect (see page two of this PDF).

If you're a runner and you were me, what would you do?

• Bail on the race (would be my first ever did not start)?
• Try and know I might have to stop (which would also be my first ever did not finish)? 

The other factor is I know this course now, since I ran it in September. We'll have two water stations and no way to do anything other than walk or trot back to the starting area. The course is a big loop and easily 2/3 of it is trail so it's not like anyone can fetch someone who's in trouble.

Kent's running the 5K there, so I'll be there anyway. I want to run this race, but I want to run it competitively and in a way that doesn't harm me. Decisions, decision.