I found out this week I've fractured one of the metatarsals in my right foot a month ago. The urgent care doc told me to stay off my feet or use crutches for 3 weeks and then I should be fine. In the meantime I'm to swim in order to keep up with my portlandfit training and to give the foot some therapy.

What I forgot to ask was how much swimming I should be doing in order to jump back into walking with the rest of the group in 3 - 4 weeks. Do I swim laps for the full time the purple group is suppose to be walking during the week? On saturdays how long do I do laps?

I appreciate the help. I'm committed to finishing Portland Fit but I want to do it in a safe and wise way.

Janienne,
Considering you probably have a healthy diet and hydrate properly, most fractures should heal within six weeks. Having already cruised through one month of the injury you should be well on your way to recovery. A couple more weeks and you'll be out there again. Just for informations sake....what is you height, weight, and age? Do you have a bone density issue? Do you take calcium or vitamin D?

Cross training is great to keep up your cardio, and missing only a few weeks of training is not that detrimental to the big picture. Your goal should not be constrained by time, instead you should focus on your heart rate and staying in you target range. In other words you should be swimming enough to raise a and maintain your heart rate at a reasonable level for a good 30-60 minutes. Coach Eric and coach JR have a wealth on information on finding and maintaining your target heart rate. You should chat with them. Once you can weight bear again on that foot another option is to spin on the stationary bike at a low resistance. Try to stay around 70-80 cycles (revolutions) per minute. This does a good job of simulating a run.

For tissue repair and fast healing... increase your vitamin C intake to 1200 mg/day separated into three doses. Also short term (a few weeks) calcium (1000 mg/day) and magnesium (300-400mg/day) supplementation can help.
I hope this helps. Heal fast.
Dr. Jake

Thank you for the quick and informative reply! I will definitely put your info to use!

Just for informations sake....what is you height, weight, and age? Do you have a bone density issue? Do you take calcium or vitamin D?

5'6", 148 lbs, 25, no known bone density issues and I started taking a multivitamin (womens once-a-day) and a calcium pill about 2 weeks ago. Trying to get in the habit as I'm not a good "consistent" pill taker person.