My injury plagued 2012 season

Well I am injured yet again in this 2012 season, this time a stress fracture in my lower right leg., in the spring it was my left hip with a muscle imbalance.  Here is how I think all this happened, kind of like the leg bone is connected to the hip bone type of thing.

            So in the spring I took my youngest daughter skiing one last time at Keystone, she was 5 at the time.  She skied I snowboarded, she headed into the trees on a trail and so did I.  I was getting going a little too fast right behind her and needed to slow, but the trail was too narrow, so what do I do reach my arm out and grab a tree.  This was not the best idea and I pulled my right shoulder back real hard.  This was the initial injury that little did I know at the time was going to plague my entire season.  So my shoulder did not really hurt on a daily basis, but after a long swim it was a little sore for months.

            The shoulder injury I believe led to my running all early season a little differently.  This led to my hip muscle imbalance after running with a sore shoulder, but nothing felt incorrect at all.  Then right before Oceanside after a long run I could barley walk with my left hip hurting so badly.  I was sure something was broken, after X-rays and MRIs confirmed nothing was I started resting again.  I raced Oceanside limping through the run and then took a few weeks off from running to recover.  I have been doing hip strengthening, lower leg strengthening, and weights, all this for injury prevention and healing. 

            This hip muscle imbalance eventually subsided and I was running again.  I raced Kansas and Lubbock 70.3 without issue.  Then last week the came the stress fracture in my lower right leg after a track session Sunday and a long run Wednesday which ended with a long walk back to the car.  I have not run since and now need yet more time to heal this injury.

            So my sore shoulder led to running crooked, which led to the left hip imbalance issue, which put more stress on my right leg which finally gave in with a stress fracture.  For now I will continue to bike and swim as those don’t cause all that much pain, running is out of the question for now.  I hope I can at least race the Boulder 70.3 in a few weeks, but it may be bike racing for now.  The late season races Austin 70.3 and Branson 70.3 I still hope to be able to recover from this season.

Moral of the story here don't follow a 5 year old into the woods skiing....but I think next season I will take what I learned here and take my rest time in the fall, then build slowly in the spring even if that means not racing at full fitness come the first spring race.