All of a sudden a pain on top of foot...WHAT?!??!

I've had similar experiences, and they've all been either stress reactions or stress fractures. If it only hurts when you put pressure on it, it seems to reaffirm that. I hate to tell you this, and hopefully I'm wrong, but it sounds like that's what you have. Get it checked out ASAP.

Good luck.

Sorry to say but that sounds exactly like a stress fracture. You can go get a bone scan to find out for sure but the bottom line is that you can't run on it anyway. I have had a couple of them with the last one being on the 4th metatarsal and although mine developed over a period of time, I think they can crop up pretty quick. The good news is that, as injuries go, stress fractures are not that bad. You take off 5-6 weeks and they are healed. Not like achilles tendinitis which never seems to go away. So look at the bright side.

get that checked... i had a pain on the top of my foot for 3 weeks that hurt when i put my weight on my forefoot. finally got an xray on sat and bam - fracture.

better to be safe then sorry a few weeks later.

In the meantime while I'm waiting to see if the pain goes away, can I aqua jog?

...I'm so happy I can be perfectly fine one day, then the next day have a possible stress fracture. this sport is great.

Definitely sounds like a stress fracture (like others responding to this thread, I've been there, too).

As for it just showing up out of the blue, that's how stress fractures occur (mine happened five days before the junior college state x-country finals).

You have the sympathies of everyone on this board, I'm sure.

Good luck!

Oh, and see a podiatrist; you might need a cast. (I did, then biked while I recovered).

FLG RUN wrote:

...I'm so happy I can be perfectly fine one day, then the next day have a possible stress fracture. this sport is great.

FLG RUN -- Just another argument for leading a balanced life. Some of your previous post suggest that you are revolving all of your college life around running. You need some social life so setbacks in running aren't so major. Sorry....just don't want to see you miss out on the best years of your life.

So he has drive... he isn't doing anything much different from what people on college teams do. I don't see a sympathy thread on missed out social life by those people.

Get you bone density checked, you could have osteopneia like I have. Stress fractures just don't show up like that, unless your in denial, which it doesn't sound like it. It should take 3-6 weeks. Mine took 4. Auga jogging hurt me when I had the one in my foot (I've had three), so try it and see if it works. I had to bike on the foot.

that's correct - injuries are not an act of god nor do they occur "suddenly" -- they may present, symptomatically, suddently, but there is a LT cause here. now, treat the stress fracture, and then address the cause or it will happen again. could be biomechanics, bone density, a host of things.

is possible it's a stress reaction, a near stress fracture that feels similar. if this is the case, you could be back a lot sooner. I had severe pain several years ago in the top of my foot but 4 days of rest and it was gone. just be careful.

the kid has to stop worrying about every little minor detail. come on, every time you feel something that doesn't feel right you come on here and post about it. take a couple days off and see if it goes away. stop worrying so much.

ps. maybe you need to go have sex, get drunk, or get high...heck, do all three.

Know a runner that felt nothing for a workout then about a mile into the cool down, bam she couldn't run. It was all of a sudden and she didn't step on anything. The bone skan = stress fracture +. It sucks but take at least 4 weeks off and better to take 6 - 8 weeks.

Does this mean you won't be contributing your 100 mile week on the 'Post your training' thread?

Dude, you committed the overdone faux pas of bull-headedly finishing the workout. What might've been an ache that'd go away in a couple days if you'd bagged the workout might take an unknown amt of time to heal. Welcome to 'Club Overuse'!

actually i think it might also be tendonities in the tendon connecting you metatarsals to the front of your calf (its called a toe extensor or something).

i had this injury earlier in the season.

IF it was just a facture it should hurt more on the footplant.

Were as tendonities hurts more on toe off.

try pressing down on your big toe and trying to raise it, see if that causes any stress

Maybe this will help to clear something up...

I can push and smush all around on the top of my foot and there is no sign of pain AT-ALL. When I step down on the ball of my foot, there is obvious pain, I won't deny that. The pain, however, is just on the bottom of the foot, NOT the top.

According to coolrunning.com, a metatarsal stress fracture is known as...."Pain in one of the long thin bones that run along the top of your foot and attach to your toes (the metatarsals). There may be a little redness or swelling, and if you touch this area the pain will practically knock you over. Press along the shaft of the bone toward the outside and then toward the inside, and you feel a stabbing pain."

I do not feel this, and in fact, when I push in on the bottom of my foot even, I don't really feel much. :-(

One last thing, would it be so unthinkable to not add in possibly a stone bruise as the "injury" ? I mean, here in Flagstaff, one of the most annoying things about all the trails that I have found are all the rocks out on all the trails, and I have found myself to have stepped on quite a few on them during training runs, and they can be VERY painful when stepping on one. I just find it odd that yesterday morning I was doing a 5 miler just fine, went through that afternoon just fine, walk out the door just fine, and during the run get a pain that hasn't gone away just yet.

sorry ...cant say...see a trainer

there's also a chance of a neuroma, which can come on rather suddenly (in regards to the pain that is). I had a flare up after i'd added an extra insole to my shoe which made it too narrow around my toe box. I got rid of the insole and relaced my shoes to take the pressure off the forefoot and it was much better in a few days. now as long as my shoes are plenty wide and laced that way i'm fine. i actually have a pretty narrow foot so it was really kind of weird that my shoes weren't wide enough but you sometimes don't know what will work until you experiment a bit, good luck on getting it fixed up man.

jitb wrote:

there's also a chance of a neuroma, which can come on rather suddenly (in regards to the pain that is). I had a flare up after i'd added an extra insole to my shoe which made it too narrow around my toe box. I got rid of the insole and relaced my shoes to take the pressure off the forefoot and it was much better in a few days. now as long as my shoes are plenty wide and laced that way i'm fine. i actually have a pretty narrow foot so it was really kind of weird that my shoes weren't wide enough but you sometimes don't know what will work until you experiment a bit, good luck on getting it fixed up man.

you sound as if you are trying to convince US that your not hurt.......!

take a few days off, and get it cheecked........you have plenty of miles behind you