Plantar Fascia Tear: Week 9

Week-Beginning Thoughts:
I'm so over this being injured thing. This sucks. I hate it. I hate not knowing when I'll get my life back. I hate not being able to plan for next year. I hate constantly having to choose between interrupting my work day to run or staying focused and not running. I hate not being able to plan workouts when I'm on vacation because I have no equipment and can't just go outside and run. I hate not running on Thanksgiving, which has been a tradition every year of my marriage. I hate it. 


Monday:
Planned: PT, 1hr Alter-G
Did: 5mi in 35min @ 75% bodyweight on Alter-G
Felt sick, headache-y and nauseous this morning, had some family car trouble, and some work stress... bailed on PT, but ended up feeling okay enough to go run at lunch. Honestly, though, I didn't want to go run. Running on the Alter-G isn't fun. It's a chore. It's work that I have to do and put in if I want to be stronger on the flip side of this injury, and that is the only reason I'm continuing to do it.



Tuesday
Planned: 1000m swim or 10KTuesday walk
Did: arms/abs Youtube video, Yoga YouTube video, 1.5mi stroller walk
Holiday travel meant I only had from 5-6am to workout. Jerry wanted to do 10KTuesday today, so I stayed home with the sleeping munchkin instead of swimming or doing 10KTuesday as a walk. Not knowing what the week would bring (we're traveling to see family and I won't have access to an Alter-G, pool, bike, or weights), I wanted to at least do SOMETHING. 

Opted for about 45min of YouTube workouts and got just under 10000 steps for the day with a short stroller walk to the neighborhood park at our travel destination.  


Wednesday
Planned: nothing
Did: 4.25mi stroller walk @ 15:11/mi avg
Had an opportunity to get a solo walk in with the munchkin, and did a substantial walk around the in-laws' neighborhood. While I enjoyed being outside, it was pretty hard to see a few other strollers being pushed by running parents and not get jealous... 


Thursday
Planned: 5K walk while Jerry continues our family tradition of Thanksgiving Day races
Did: Turkey Trot 10K in 1:27:53, 1.5mi stroller walk 
The first year we were married, we decided to start a family tradition of doing a race on Thanksgiving Day. Every year since, no matter where we are, we've made it happen (with the small exception of the year I was supposed to run the Thanksgiving Half, but ended up having a baby instead-- and we'll hold that over the kid forever).

There isn't a 5K option where we are this year, so my choices were to make everyone get to the race an hour+ earlier than necessary so that I could walk a 1mi or suck it up and do the 10K. A 10K is a really, really long way to walk... but I wanted to earn my Thanksgiving dinner, so I signed myself up for it, knowing that, once I was signed up, I wouldn't back out.

an attempt at accurate self-seeding--- all the way in the back

I had a tentative goal of 1:40 (around 16min/mi), but was hoping for a 15:00 average pace (1:33), but wasn't going to do anything crazy to get there. I used my arms and strode like a boss off the line, but didn't even bother to turn on my watch or look at my pace at all along the course. 

Walking was hard. It was hard to be different from the rest of my family (Jerry, the potato, and my father-in-law were all at the front of the pack). It was hard to feel like and outsider. It was hard to have SO MUCH TIME to stare at the course marshal volunteers from the time we made eye contact to the time that I passed them. And it was hard to keep going when I could feel blisters starting to form on the soles of my feet. (Knowing full well that it would be really hard not to run even a few steps here and there, I self-sabotaged by wearing normal pants, a hoodie, and Ugg boots.)

When I saw the finish clock from just before the 6mi mark, it read 1:28. I'd started with at least a 2min lag from gun time, which meant I had a shot at not only hitting 1:30, but breaking it. HECK YES. I power-walked that last quarter mile like a champ, and was so proud to have finished not only under 1:30, but in 1:27:48. 

I can't say that I enjoyed doing the race, but I am seriously proud of myself for getting out and getting it done. I spent the rest of the day knowing I'd done a solid bit of exercising, continued our family tradition, and really felt like I'd earned that finisher medal, more than I ever would have if I'd just been able to run it. 

family running!

Also did a post-dinner walk to/from the park with the munchkin.  


Friday
Planned: who knows
Did: a couple miles of walking along the oceanfront and through neighborhoods
Legs and butt = SO SORE. 

Saturday
Planned: idk
Did: a few push-ups with the munchkin on my back (YEAAAAAAH), 2 sets of core exercises

Sunday
Planned: try to swim once baby boy goes to bed
Did: nada
Got super sick in the morning, felt absolutely dead all day. 


Week-ending Thoughts:
Blergh. 

Also, I don't think I've EVER had this much variety in my training:

Now with more cross-training!