My Ideal Tibia

This spring I’m taking a leadership class, and one of our first assignment was to do this giant “Ideal Self” assessment that included making a bucket list*, envisioning our lives 15 years from now, considering what ongoing learning we want to do throughout our lives, and a bunch of stuff like that. Approximately every third thing I wrote was about athletic accomplishments, specifically running. And so I decided it’s time to get back to figuring out my stress-fracture (?) / shin issues. Here’s the progression of how that went:

First, I made a doctor appointment. I felt like I could probably just start running, but after starting and having my leg end up hurting so many times, I was terrified to try without a backup plan.

Second, I ran a couple times right before the appointment, for 10 minutes each time. Good news: NO PAIN! Ambiguous news: intense sensations of pressure and mild burning at random times during the days that follow.

Third, I went to the doctor and had an x-ray and took a bone pic while waiting alone in the room.

Next, the doctor said “Your tibia looks fine. Have you ever broken your fibula? Because it’s crooked. Try running, I’ll order an MRI for you and if it starts to hurt come in and get it and we’ll see if it’s a soft tissue problem. Oh, your mom’s a doctor too? Very impressive.”

Then I went running – two more ten minute sessions since then. It’s been awesome, and my leg status hasn’t changed.

Finally, I did two and a half pull-ups. This isn’t part of the running/injury story, but it felt worth bragging about. Maybe there is hope for me to break my sixth grade pull-up PR of six! Here’s what I did my pull-ups with (top):

The picture on the bottom is of my old, non-pull-up-doing arm. That was back before my biceps were worthy of the X-Pro II filter.

*In case you’re super curious about my bucket list, some non-athletic things on it are: