remember when i said how i was planning on running the marine corps marathon at the end of october? i’m not sure if i can do it now. for about the past 3 or 4 weeks at least (i remember not being in pain on july 10th when cynicalscribe and i went up to philadelphia for her roller derby bout), i’ve had a pain in my left foot / ankle section. it really started to bother me when i was running 3 miles on the treadmill at work, and looking at my schedule that was probably on july 13. it seriously hurt so bad i thought i twisted my ankle, and so i went home and put ice on it and let my leg rest. since then, i’ve realized that it’s not the ankle that’s hurting, but some point just a few inches above the left outside ankle. even now it still hurts to various degrees, and it’s really annoying… sometimes it hurts so little or not at all and i’m able to walk around without pain and at a normal pace, and other times i really have to limp my way around. it sucks.

for the most part last week when we went on a trip to the virgin islands it was ok, but going snorkeling with a sore foot like that might not have been the best idea, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any worse. my thought was that it’s a stress fracture or something like that, but i have no idea. my coach at the office gym saw me the other day and asked me how my marathon training was coming along and i had to admit to him that i hadn’t been running for the few previous weeks because of this injury. the coach thought that maybe it could be a combination of things, something like the muscle is growing so fast it’s pressing up against a bone and that’s causing the pain. later that day we looked up some sports medicine specialists in annapolis for me to check out, and i scheduled an appointment with a foot and ankle orthopedist.

unfortunately for me, the annapolis 10-mile run which i was hoping to run (i mean, it starts and ends on the stadium grounds across the street from my house, so since it’s so convenient, why wouldn’t i want to join in?), that run takes place on august 29th. the earliest i could be seen for an appointment is on august 31. i’m not going to go running on this sore foot, you have to keep something like a 12-minute / mile pace in order to make it through the course, and i don’t want to injure my foot even more and only just days before this appointment.

so i have this appointment scheduled for the end of august, and i’m not sure if i should even be running the marathon now. assuming a miracle cure, that still gives me only 8 weeks until the race, and i’m woefully behind in training… partly because of my foot, and partly because of the heat. so… yeah. i’m disappointed. there’s an option i think for me to defer my registration until next year, but i’ll talk with the doctor and see what they suggest.

in other news, yes, we went on a trip to the virgin islands last weekend and stayed in the tent cottages at maho bay on st. john — we flew down on thursday, i was there friday-sunday and returned on monday, and the rest of the family returned on tuesday. it was a nice little vacation for anne’s high school graduation present (she wants to go into marine biology and she and dad have been taking scuba lessons, so that was the big reason for the trip). the rest of us went snorkeling, hiking, exploring, swimming, shopping, etc. hopefully tonight i’ll be able to edit my pictures and videos from that, and from my cousin’s wedding we attended in new jersey this weekend.