Injury :(

I was trying to get more mileage in for running and was fencing four days a week as well to get ready for Nationals and I started to get very bad shin pains. I stopped running for a few days and the pain only got worse. I got an x-ray and an MRI which proved that I had a stress reaction in my tibia, which is the preceding stage of a stress fracture. I was very agrivated and nervous with having Nationals only about 3 weeks away. I was in a boot for about a week but since I did not have a stress fracture and only a stress reaction I could start running on a treadmill called the Alter G. This is a treadmill that has a black blow up compartment that covers your lower body and fills with air to take off weight so that athletes are still able to run while injured, just at a lower body weight. It was great that I could still run even though it wasn’t outside and at full body weight. I slowly worked my way up in weight and was soon back to fencing and almost 100% on the Alter G. I had to do a lot of ice baths and recovery to make sure that I was still healing my body and making steps forward and not backwards. I was able to work a lot on my swimming and shooting since I wasn’t able to run as much which was good. With Nationals a week away I finally had my first run outside, it was only 15 minutes but it was a start! I was still doing workouts in the Alter G at about 95% so that I could still get mileage in and some good speed workouts in before Nationals.
During this time I was able to move in to a small house with two other athletes in Colorado Springs! It was different living off complex and not at the OTC but made training much easier since I was only 5 minutes away instead of all the way in Denver.