I was in the middle of a marathon training block and unfortunately came down with one of these.

Anyone on here that's gone through this and would care to share your experience in recovery?

I've had two stress fractures; metatarsal and femoral neck…both diagnosed with MRIs. Both required a period of restriction of about 6 weeks (a boot for the foot and crutches for the femoral neck). After that, I waited another 6 weeks before I saw a PT weekly and started a return to running program which was a very conservative build back to running. I did bike a lot during that 2nd 6 week period…but focused on higher cadence and not pushing big gears.

Fast forward to now, I keep my mileage a lot more limited than I used to (55 mpw max), pay a lot closer attention to my body and skip workouts when I don't feel great. I also drink a lot of almond milk and take calcium supplements.

Edit to add, this was all under the care of an orthopedic doctor who treats most of the pro runners in the Twin Cities. It's conservative but works…you just have to be patient.

Did you get an x-ray that showed an actual fracture? Or more like stress injury/cortical thickening?

The fibula isn't really a heavily weight bearing bone. I think it accounts for something like 5% of weight bearing or something like that. So not common to get a stress fracture in it. Though not impossible. I would look at your running form and shoes and such.

But as far as recovery, it depends on how bad it is and how long you kept running on it before you realized you needed to stop. If there are actual fracture lines, then that'll take longer. Good thing with stress fractures is that they give you feedback a lot better than soft tissue injuries which will feel great and then the next day you'll realize you shouldn't have done what you did.

Increase your calories and vitamin D intake. Continue to cross train and do things that place some stress on the lower extremity, but not enough stress to cause pain. Soft tissue massage of the surrounding muscles, and doing alternating cold and warm compresses may help.

Will be probably 4 weeks before you can start running again - depending on how back the injury is. Maybe longer.

Thanks for the info guys!

It first felt it a little on 11/9 but thought I could still do my 1/2 Marathon on 11/16 cause I didn't know what it was and it didn't feel too bad. Come race day I went out strong but it flared up big time at Mile 4 and basically limped to the finish making it much worse.

I waited about 2 weeks before I went in to the doctor because I was making some progress and they took X Rays and although nothing showed up, the Doc was 99% sure it was a stress fracture because those typically don't show up unless it's an MRI.

They were supposed to call me back for one but I've made enough progress and can ride the stationary bike without any problems now. I imagine I'll probably do this for a couple more weeks before a start a return to running program like you're saying.