KEY POINTS:
Commonwealth Games 1500m gold medallist Nick Willis has been struck by a mystery injury in the leadup to three homecoming meets casting a shadow over his future on the track.
A left leg injury -- which could be a stress fracture -- prevented him from joining a top field of middle-distance runners at a Tauranga meet last night.
The 23-year-old Michigan-based star, who arrived home on Boxing Day after a week in Sydney, told the Bay of Plenty Times the injury hit suddenly while he was out training a week ago.
"It's my outside shin/fibula bone and it came on without any warning, starting to bother me big time about five days ago," Willis said.
"I've been to three physios but can't get into Lower Hutt Hospital for a bone scan, and a proper diagnosis, until January 10.
"The leg's still bothering me after almost a week and I haven't been able to put much weight on it, so naturally I'm assuming the worst, that it's stress fractures."
Willis was to have run a handful of local events, including last night's twilight meet, a 1500m race in Wellington on January 6, and a crack at Rod Dixon's grass-track mile record at the Hutt Recreation Ground on January 17.
Willis believed the leg injury could be related to a handful of minor biomechanical imbalances highlighted through testing at the University of Michigan a month ago.
"There's tighteness and weaknesses in certain areas of my body that I didn't know about but I've been busy the last few months building a good base (running 150km a week), which is no different than I've done in the past," he told the newspaper.
"That's often how a stress fracture will work though - one minute you're going along fine and then, wham! You're down."
Willis heads back to the United States on January 22 and hopes to resume light training by next week. Ten days of complete rest was Willis' self-prescribed remedy.
"Whenever I get a serious injury, walking away from running is the easiest way for me to begin the healing process, just dealing with it emotionally and not trying to mask emotions with other things.
"I think I'm dealing with the injury, and the prospect it could potentially be quite serious, pretty well -- I'm more disappointed for the people who wanted to come and see me run."
- NZPA
