How I Recovered from a Stress Reaction in 3 Weeks
This post is not intended as medical advice, this is simply a recount of my experience. Always consult with a health care professional.
Three weeks out from the Mesa Marathon, I was mid-race on a ski run when I felt a sharp pain in my left shin bone. I took a few days off, tried a short test run, and made it four minutes before I was limping home.
I had a stress reaction.
Looking back, I am not surprised. In the weeks before it happened, I had drastically increased my mileage, ramped up intensity, and switched to a stiffer pair of shoes, all at the same time. In hindsight, I was also probably under-fueling given my increase in activity.
Anyways, here is what I did to recover.
Rest and Cross-Training
I stopped running entirely for three weeks. Instead I biked, a lot. I did most (maybe all?) of it on Zwift because it is low-impact and easy to control intensity. I also kept up with ski mountaineering on very chill routes, keeping sessions short and stopping at the first sign of any discomfort.
This part is hard. Staying active on the bike helped me hold onto my fitness and stay consistent with eating, which I think mattered a lot for how quickly I healed.
Supplements
I added a few supplements during recovery with the goal of giving my body what it needed to repair bone tissue. I'm not sure what actually helped byt the placebo effect was strong.
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Vitamin D — Essential for calcium absorption. Without enough of it, your body cannot effectively use the calcium you are eating. Apparently, a lot of athletes are low without knowing it, especially in winter.
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Fish Oil — Has anti-inflammatory properties, which helps support the healing process and can reduce pain around the injury site.
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Collagen — A structural component of bone. I took it every morning mixed in my coffee.
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Vitamin C — Helps with collagen synthesis and acts as an antioxidant.
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Nature's Life Mega Minerals — Includes magnesium, zinc, manganese, calcium, and other trace minerals involved in bone health. Magnesium in particular works alongside calcium and Vitamin D.
Nutrition
I made a real effort to eat more overall. Under-fueling is one of the most common causes of bone stress injuries in runners and continuing to under-eat during recovery would have slowed everything down. I focused on protein and calcium and tried not to overthink it beyond that.
Return to Running
After three weeks I started with hiking to test things out. My rule was simple, any pain or weird sensation and I stopped immediately. Once I could hike pain-free, I moved to short run-walk intervals with the same rule. I repeated that cycle (test, back off if needed, build slightly) until I could run continuously without any discomfort. From there, I increased volume very gradually. No speed work, no hard back-to-back days, nothing that would put sudden load on the shin. I also continued biking to supplement running
I didn't make it to the Mesa Marathon start line. But I was running again, which honestly felt way better than completing a race.
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