How do you guys deal with injuries, psychologically???

I'm going through the same thing. I found it helped if I volunteered for as much track-related stuff as possible. I felt like I was contributing. Still doesn't substitute for running but you MUST give yourself time to heal or else you'll be stuck in the dreaded injury-loop where you try to come back too soon and re-injure yourself. I also did cross-training; weight work for core and upper body, and swimming for lower body. You have to remind yourself this is just a small bump in the road that everyone goes through sometime in their running career. Good luck!

How did you get the stress fracture? Was there any soreness or warning? Are you cross training until you recover?

Thanks, both of you. I got the stress fracture by doing too much mileage probably. I got up to 60mpw and I wasn't going to go up from there, I was doing 3 doubles a week and I felt I had increased mileage gradually - yet, I still got injured. If this injury is my fault, though, it's because I wasn't aggressive enough in the treatment. I basically tried to run through it. The problem is that I had had another minor injury that felt similar that went away without me backing off too much, so I think I had false confidence from that.

I was cross training every day (mainly elliptical, some bike, some weights, which I was already doing) but the season ended last week (postseason was not an option for me because of the injury). So, I tried to come back for the last race but I wasn't ready. Now I'm taking a week off everything before starting up cross training before I try to run again. Thanks for the advice about making sure I heal. I have plenty of time now and I have a good coach. Right now, my concern is not the injury interfering with xc but how I can cope with still being injured.

A lot of research coming out people actually having VitD deficiency which relates directly to bone health.

Get blood work checking everything. Even if the doctor said your ok just on the low end get on supplements.