My worst day yet... although it could get worse

When I started marathon training, all of the first time marathoner stuff that I read said that basically if you stuck with your training plan, you would be able to finish the marathon... barring any injuries. Easy enough, right? Well, I've clearly found out that sticking with a training plan isn't always easy, but I've been able to do it. And I've also been pretty much able to escape injuries... until now.

Today sucked. There's no other way to put it. For the past couple of weeks, I've been having some pain in my left hip joint area. It usually would hurt when I started running, and then would seem to feel better after a mile or two. Some runs it didn't bother me at all. Then Saturday it began to hurt more, and I think it's the reason my 16 mile run was so hard. I was running with bad form because I was trying to favor my other leg, which caused my legs to burn out before they should have. Then this morning, I couldn't even finish 2 miles, the pain had gotten so bad. I started to look around on the internet at what it might be, and when I saw that it could be a stress fracture, I knew it was time to call a sports med doc.

As if the day before school starting isn't stressful enough, I was able to squeeze in an appointment that they thankfully had open. Before the doctor even came in, they took x-rays of my hip. The doctor then came in, asked me a bunch of questions about the pain, and had me do some different movements to see if any of it caused pain. None of it did, which he said meant it probably wasn't a hip flexor strain, which was one of the possibilities. The other possibility... a stress fracture. My x-ray was clean, but he said that if it's a fairly new fracture, they don't always show up on x-rays, so I need to have an MRI done. And I'm supposed to not run until my follow up appointment after the MRI. He then added the news that I was dreading. If it is a stress fracture, I'm done running for at least 4 weeks. That pretty much means no Chicago Marathon for me.

Although I know nothing for sure right now, and won't until my follow up appointment on Tuesday, there have been many tears already today. I can't even imagine putting in everything that I have done so far only to have it go to waste. Undoubtedly, I'm not completely giving up running a marathon. If it is a stress fracture, and I can't run Chicago, I'm going to talk to the doctor about when I can start again, at what point in my training I would be able to start at, and look into any possible marathon within driving distance. But I'm waiting to worry about that until I know for sure what is going on. I really had my heart set on running the Chicago Marathon. I've been picturing the finish line there every time I go for a run, and we even drove the course a couple weekends ago. So send me some positive vibes, and let's hope for some good news on Tuesday...