Bummer . . .

After the pain I felt in my foot while running (or bouldering or sometimes just walking) didn't lessen after a couple of weeks, I decided to actually get it checked out by a doctor. The verdict? A stress fracture in my third metatarsal. 

The boot

I've been given this big boot to wear and told not to run or climb for the next six weeks. The boot is pretty much the same one I wore when I broke my calcaneus (on the same foot) a few years ago, which seems weird because this is so much less of an injury. At least I'm not on crutches for this one. I have a suspicion I mostly have to wear it because the doctor (who was great, by the way) wants me to actually take the no running or climbing thing seriously. Which is hard. But, as she pointed out, it's a small fracture now but I have the potential to make it much worse if I keep doing what I've been doing.  


The real kicker is that it means I won't be able to run either the Boston or the Big Sur marathons that I had been training for. And they're making it harder to qualify for Boston after this year, so I'll have to up my game if I want to run it a future year. Or try to qualify at an easier race; I qualified at Big Sur last year, which is notoriously hilly. 


As much as I like the concept of this new trend of barefoot running, the doctor said she thought running in my barefoot shoes is probably what did me in. Apparently I'm a supinator, the opposite of a pronator. I have high, inflexible arches that don't do as great of a job absorbing shock as I run, making me more prone to things like stress fractures if I don't have sufficient padding. 


I guess I'll have to be a little more sedentary this next few weeks. Or become more aquatic; floating shouldn't further stress out my feet. 

Running in Monterey

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.

I'm in Monterey for the quarter, taking classes at Stanford's marine station. It's an amazing place to get out and run as I gear up for the Boston marathon on April 16 (just got my plane ticket today . . . getting stoked). 

I love the progression of runs that start out in Cannery Row, continue on down the coastal trail, and then go along the scenic "17-mile drive" toward Carmel. I start out weaving through the crowds of pedestrian tourists that concentrate around the aquarium, which soon turns into weaving through the packs of casual bicyclests along the coastal trail that looks out onto the sheltered Monterey Bay, until I make my way around the point, where it's less populated but I continue to follow along the seemingly infinite stretch of turbulent, rocky shores. This is my favorite part, passing by the surfers of Asilomar that make me crave my surfing stint in Santa Cruz and sites such as "The Great Tidepool," the fabled Doc's favorite collecting site in Steinbeck's Cannery Row. 

Unfortunately, I think I pushed it a little too hard on my long run last weekend. I luckily never encountered running-related injuries while training for my first two marathons, but this means I'm not really sure how this should affect my training plan. The fact that I'm experiencing some pain in my foot that make me think I should take a little break from running, so yesterday I went on a long bike ride instead. Hopefully I'll be fully back in the game again soon. 

Sport climbing at Pinnacles National Monument

East Buttress of El Cap

I've also gotten to take some advantage of the lack of any sort of winter here in California and gotten some climbing in. It seems so strange to me that Yosemite is still so climbable in February . . . 

Guinness Book 2012

The new Guinness Book of World Records came out mid-September, featuring me on page 123 as the youngest female to climb the Seven Summits (Johnny Collinson is now the youngest person). I must note, however, that it also includes Robert Scull II as the youngest to do both the Carstensz and Kosciuszko lists—I, and I think Collinson as well, climbed both Carstensz and Kosciuszko at a younger age than he, so that’s not accurate. Not that I think having climbed Kosciuszko, the day-hike in Australia, should be a deal breaker for anything.

There’s a photo of me on the page from a shoot I did with Guinness Book in Tahoe last winter—right after Tahoe had gotten it’s biggest snow dump in decades.

In other news, my dad and I were both accepted into this April’s Boston marathon. Should be fun.

My dad, Nick, and I after the Big Sur marathon last May, where I qualified for Boston