Sore!

Meet the man that is currently trying to fix me  Yes, he is that crazy!  That is why I love him, he just fits in with the rest of us crazy runners.  He is a runner too, so he understands us but more importantly, he has worked with many, many runners and their various injuries including ultra marathoners and KSU Big 12 athletes.  I met him a few years ago, when I started back to running post pregnancy.  I was a mess and he kindly told me that I needed to stop running, work on strength training and get my core back into shape and then start back running again.  Boy, was he ever right. I trust this man so much and I am trusting him again that we can make it through this injury.

To say I am sore is an understatement.  As tendons, ligaments, bones and muscles get moved and used differently, my leg sometimes screams at me.  I am trying to listen very intently and decipher pain from doing to much (AKA as the lower leg pain) versus the pain from just re aligning my whole body.  I have been trying to mix up the water jogging with biking and walking.  I am up to walking 2.7 miles with minimal to no pain.  I will probably try some three mile walks towards the end of this week.  I am still not sure when running will be possible, but I am trying not to push it.  I would rather get through this and be able to run continuously than to get through this part way and get to run a little and then back to injury.
I had my first DNS at the KC half and full a few weeks ago:(  That was hard.  I had several friends running and their experiences were amazing.  The weather was perfect and they had BBQ and beer afterwards.  I had thought about going along and just cheering everyone on but in the end, with the bills that are rolling in, I decided to stay home and save money.  The DNS this weekend will be the toughest.  This weekend is Tails on the Trail in Topeka, which is a trail 5 K that benefits the local shelter.  Last year Stella and I got second in our age group and I am sure if I had not had been injured, I could have at least placed in my age group again.
This would have been our third year running and I really, really like running 5 Ks with my stella, especially trail runs.  I also am going to be missing my first ever obstacle race with my running buddies that is next weekend and of course the next half that I signed up for at the end of November.  I am still holding out hope for the last 5 K of the month and haven't signed up for the december 5 K that I usually do.  Last year I had a huge race to the finish against a really competitive lady that made the whole race awesome!  Here is my recap from last year.   I am just not sure I will be ready to race by then.  I hope to be back running for sure, but probably not in racing form.  Plus there is one whole mile of hills that were tough for me last year, so not sure I should be pushing hill work at that point.  Anyway, still trying to stay positive and not think about all the races I am not running but the four I will be running next spring.  The goal is the Heartland series and hopefully the Wicked half since it is local as in I can walk out of my house in five minutes be at the start line.  Help me stay positive and leave me a positive comment:)

TRAINS

If you follow me on FB or on the blog, you know my son is EXTREMELY obsessed with trains.  I knew this was a common little boy obsession but wow, I didn't understand how bad it could get!  I guess I did have a My Little Pony obsession, but wow, this kid has it bad. The good thing is, it makes it really easy to buy clothes and gifts for holidays.  Santa has already mentioned that he is getting little red a train table and some thomas stuff for Christmas.  I woke up sunday ready to do something. It was SUPER windy, so a bike ride was not really an option.  I had to get out, be productive and enjoy the nice weather before it ends.  It was 80 yesterday which is really odd since it is the end of October.

I had decided that we needed to do something fun as a family rather than me head out to do something on my own fitness wise.  We loaded up and headed to Abilene KS, which is about an hour away, to ride the Smoky Valley railway.  The tickets were 15 bucks for adults and little red was free because of his age.

This was our second train riding adventure.  The first was down in Baldwin City KS.  This was much more fun because the train cars were open on the sides, and even though it was hot and windy, we were very comfortable riding.  The ride was a bit long and it was an out and back much like the other train ride, but this had some pretty scenery and wildlife at least to go with the ride.  We had also learned to bring our own food and drinks for the ride to keep little red busy and us all hydrated.  

We also got to witness a real wild west shoot out prior to boarding the train, but little red thought it was too loud and I agreed.  We spent our time at the train table instead prior to boarding.  

The depot had not only a train table, but many train oriented offerings including books and models.  We needed a conductor cap for Halloween, so we procured one very quickly from the gift shop.  

Andrew stayed pretty excited the whole way out and back.  Daddy had gotten some candy at the gift shop, which came in handy, as our snack was not cool enough.

The ride was pretty smooth, and it was nice to be able to sit or stand while the train was moving.  There was suppose to be narration, but after the first five or so minutes, the speaker in our car went out, probably due to the crazy wind whipping through.

We rode for about 45 minutes and then stopped at another small depot to get off and stretch our legs.  There were many places to take pictures and many families had dressed up and brought fancy cameras for this occasion.  One family was all in overalls and conductor's caps for their family pics. 

We also got to go up in the engine cab and look around.  Not as cool as a steamie but andrew seemed impressed.  I was not impressed with the height of the steps.  Little legs here!

After about 15 or 20 minutes, we loaded back up and headed back to the original depot.  Little red was a little more antsy going back and it was getting a bit hotter, but tootsie rolls made the ride back better. 

I think fun was had by all and we ended the day with a trip to sonic for slushes before the drive back.  Andrew was out before 10 last night, so I know it wore him out, which is a good thing since we had slept till almost 9 that morning.  I also got a 2.5 mile walk in after we got home and have had NO soreness today.  I went back to wearing my compression socks during the walk and iced as much as I could post walk.  I have two more PT sessions this week and am hoping to get in the pool as much as possible thanks to smaller experiments this week.

Have a great week and if you have a train you can ride near by, try it!  

  

Catching up

What a great week!  It was one of those winning at work kind of weeks.  A project I have been working on since april (with lots and lots of failures) finally worked.  The bonus is the customer is a very big corporation and they have been very impressed with our tenacity and desire to please them.  They are willing to send us more samples and sing our praises to other companies.  Now we just have to hold our breath that it assembles well.

Then this little guy got sick on thursday.  He threw up three times as I was getting ready for work, once all over me.  I was covered in candy corn and milk.  It was not fun.  I quickly cleaned up and changed and texted his daycare and my boss that I would not be in. He was fine for the rest of the day of course and we had a fun day playing hooky.  

We also finally got our pumpkins carved!  This is Uncle Cayce's pumpkin.  They got wet before we moved them to the front porch so it is a little rotten and moldy now but it looked cool for one night.  

Daddy's pumpkin looked cool too!  It seems to be holding up a little better.  

We had some trouble finding the little candles for lighting them up.  We found some cool LED lights but they weren't bright enough.  Thank goodness for the dollar store.  We found a huge pack of tea lights that work great for pumpkins for 2 bucks.  

We have spent so much time at the park lately. I think we are trying to get as much time in as possible before the winter hits.  Yesterday there was a guy sitting on one of the benches singing and playing a guitar and harmonica.  Andrew went straight to him and sat next to him on the bench.  At one point he looked at me and tony and said "I like this."  I liked it too.  

We were joking that this is my thousand dollar mug.  I am not sure exactly that running this race and prepping for it caused the injury but it is still odd that i was fine running four half marathons this spring and they were all road runs.  Does it bother anyone else that there appears to be a dot between the 2 and the 5?  It was a 25 K, not a 2.5 K LOL!  The bills have finally started coming in from all of the fun post run.  Some were worse than I thought they would be and some better.  I guess i met my deductible with the hospital bill so the rest will be less thanks to that.  Oh well, payment plans are fun right?

This is blurry but anytime I do my rehab exercises, andrew copies me.  He was trying to squat with the ball between his legs.  I have been super sore and I am hoping that means progress.  I go back for two more sessions this week.  I got several bike rides in this week but not as many pool sessions as I had hoped.   Too busy at work to go during the day .  Only got in the pool twice and hoping to get in today as well.  Got in several bike rides and some two mile walks.  Had some soreness in my shin friday and saturday so I cut out walks those two days.  Going to walk today and see if the soreness comes back. 

 I did some running thursday by accident that may have caused some of the soreness too.  Basically, little red and the hubs and i went in to swim  and I forgot the combo on my locker and had to run back across campus to get my combo from my office.  I was in a hurry and did some running to get things before the pool opened.  Bad me.  It felt SO good at the time.  Then after I had soreness friday I was really depressed.  I have not run since September 21st so it has been over a month now.  Shouldn't I be getting better by now?  How long am I going to have to sit out?  If it isn't a stress fracture, why am I still having issues?  I am so ready to run again and enjoy this beautiful fall weather while it lasts.  I am starting to get a little worried about the heartland series next year.  I need to be training again by december at least to be ready.  I know I will retain some of my fitness but I am going to lose all of my endurance.  I kept thinking last night as I was biking, why I am starting to get so frantic about this injury? I think it is the fact that running is hard and I am not looking forward to starting over.  I had just gotten to the point where 4 miles was my base and 25-30 miles a week felt great and doable.  Now I will be starting back over at 0. 

I saw this on FB this week and I almost cried.  Running is a great addiction and I can't wait to be back on the road.  It is going to be hard but I am ready.   

Have a great sunday and a great week!  I can't wait for Halloween!

Injury update

 I had my first visit with my massage guy monday night to do a plan of attack for PT.  He is convinced that he can bring my hips back in and train my muscles to hold my legs in more.  He is also convinced that while I will never be 100% normal in the way I run or walk, that the gains we can make will improve my walk and run and will prevent further injuries of that nature.  He also indicated that in the process of getting everything back in line that I would be super sore, which I am, so no running for a while:(  I totally agree but was so looking forward to some fall running at some point.  Now it is looking more like winter running, which is okay, any running is good at this point.  Just trying to keep my head up and not let negative thoughts creep into my head.

I am doing a lot of this which is nice at work because there is tile and tile means lines I can follow.  I am back to having a right leg that is almost 3 times as strong as my left leg.  Bummer.  I was up to 1.5 miles of walking at a brisk pace and had some soreness return. I took a night off last night and will return to my walking tonight.  

We had game one last night.  Let's just say the results were not good but there are still many more games to go and I am going to remain positive.

It wasn't a good game and I hope that KC fans can keep the faith.  They have had a super hot post season, so they were due one bad game.  

Uncle cayce just got his pumpkin carved.  Little red keeps walking over to it and saying, "scary".  Can't wait to get it lit up at night!  

And lastly for today, an update on Deuce and his allergies.  I finally broke down and did the allergy testing after yet another round of steroids.  I worry about him being on steroids so much and I have read about horrible side effects that I may be seeing now.  Deuce has lost most of his undercoat and it is almost winter.  I have never seen him this naked.  The top coat seems very wiry and thin.  I hope I am over analyzing this situation and that this is normal pre-winter shedding but I am afraid it isn't.  The good and bad news is that there were only two major allergens reported back as high on his test.  Corn pollen was the worst and storage mites were the second.  We are hoping with winter coming on that pollen will settle down.  The storage mites are going to be harder to tackle because I have read that once they are in the environment, they are hard to get rid of.  We use air tight containers for the storage of food and up until recently, we have only stored a bag at a time.  We now are buying from a pet shop that delivers and they want us to at least buy two bags at time to make it worth their delivery trip.  I am doing a ton of research on storage and how to reduce these stupid mites.  I am hoping if we can get both environmental issues out of the way, we can then truly evaluate if there are food allergies present too.  I am ready to start towards a positive step in recovery for my baby-d and stop the steriod usage! 

Have a great week and GO ROYALS!  Game number 2 tonight at the K.  Going to be listening as I travel into town for another PT session.  

I LOVE FALL

Yes, I am shouting, I LOVE FALL!  This is my favorite time of year.  Football is on, post season baseball is still on and the weather is PERFECT for being outside!

Little red and I had to get one more train ride in the park before they shut down the train for the winter.  A HUGE thank you to the volunteers who help run the train every single weekend and on thursdays.  Little red LOVES riding and since we can hear the train whistle from the house, we have to go ride often!  

We also made our now annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  Hard to believe how much he has grown in one year and that he still wears that same hat.

It was so much fun and little red could hardly contain himself with all of the fun stuff to do.  Six bucks to get in (and that is just for your kid, adults pay nothing) and hours of enjoyment = huge success.  

There were tons of farm animals to pet and see.  Of course the baby kittens were his favorite.  He lately has had a thing for kittens.  I am guessing a new kitten or cat will be gracing our household soon.  He gushed on and on all weekend about the black kitten and the orange kitten.

They even have a smaller pumpkin patch for the little ones to pick their own pumpkin in addition to the larger patch where the daddy's pick out their pumpkins (HEHE).  

There are tons of photo ops all throughout the patch which makes mommies like me happy:)  We picked out two large pumpkins for the men of the family to carve.  

So many fun activities and a smore/hot chocolate station as well for us big kids.  This will be a family tradition for years to come, or until little Red thinks it is no longer cool.

But I think we have a few years before that happens.

There was also a train there but NO adults allowed on board.  I was fairly nervous as I was not sure that andrew would understand to stay seated.  The kid in the picture was very kind to make sure that on two of the trips, andrew stayed sitting down.  The third trip, andrew went solo and was fine.  I am trying not to be so protective of him but it is dang hard some times.  He is my one and only and I don't want anything bad to happen to him.

  

The rest of the weekend was good too.  We pretty much head to the park every night now so we spent time sliding and swinging and running.  We also had to stop for some ice cream because I had to get my walk in and the ice cream place is exactly half a mile from my house.

This is the firs time I think we have bought him a cone to eat all by himself.  It was a small and he wore most of it but he is washable and so are his clothes.  I have been walking a mile every day for the past three days, per my ortho dr's blessings with little to no pain.  I am increasing that today and will do a few days at a mile and a half.  I am going to increase by a half a mile for a week or so and then hopefully I can start back to running low mileage.  I hope to continue all things cross training and got two really good bike rides in this weekend.  Both over an hour, one with fartleks thanks to the harvest trucks wearing the gravel down and one just easy with my BRF.  I am staring some therapy sessions tonight with the master of pain at Body First so will keep you posted on that as well.  

Have a great week and a HAPPY MONDAY!

Ortho Doctor update

Okay before the update I have to do a little photo dumpage of the kiddo.  He is so vocal right now about EVERYTHING.  He now begs to drive any time he is in the car.  Some times I let him as long as he leaves the gear shift alone of course.  He will sit there for hours if you let him and just pretend to drive.  He doesn't get that from me at all!  I HATE driving and if I was super rich, I would hire a driver and a chef first thing.  

Here are the proofs for his first school picture.  Such a little ham!  We will of course have to get all of them.  

I love his teachers.  It will be sad when he moves up.  At least being in the same small building, he will get to still see them everyday.  

Okay on to the important news of the day.  I had a re-check with Dr. Grumpy.  I was really dreading it, so much so that I made myself sick in the office bathroom.  Bonus, I also found out he was in surgery right before my appointment so may be a little late.  Great.  Glad I brought along my newest Runner's World to keep me company.  My appointment was at 9:30 and I think he finally came in around 10:10.  He was totally different from the first time!!!!  I was so surprised!  He treated me like a patient instead of an annoyance, and was very good about explaining what was going on and how to proceed.  I am going to be doing some PT work on my own, which is good, and I am released to start walking on it.  He explained to me that it was not shin splints, as we had originally thought, but instead a specific spot on my bone swelling due to too much load.  I am not sure why the load suddenly increased to the point of causing pain, but why ask why I guess.  Probably just a cumulative effect of all of my training that probably was aggravated by the very different terrain of Konza.  I am just ready to move forward and in a pain free way.  It has been nice having little to no pain the past week or so.  I am enjoying my cross training and will continue doing both biking and water jogging as I can and will work water jogging into my routine for good.  Work is going to be super duper busy next week and my monthly friend is here to visit, so next week and the pool will probably be a bust. I am not hanging up my suit just yet.  I love that I can push myself super hard in the pool and not have any negative effects.  I am enjoying coming up with interval routines to push myself and I am looking forward to some interval routines on the bike as well.  I will admit, while I am getting to see the countryside via bike, I am missing my running routes like crazy this beautiful fall.  Last night we did an 11 mile ride and it was just perfect.  The sunset was amazing with all of the beautiful colors.  It's just different from the back of a bike versus on the ground.  I am ready to be back on the ground!

Have a great weekend!  I, as well as Miss stella, are looking forward to getting some quality walking in this weekend!

Water jogging work outs and ROYALS!

I have scoured the internet to find water jogging routines and found little to nothing.  Maybe I was looking in the wrong spot but I decided to take what I saw and make up some of my own and put them here just in case anyone else would be looking at some point.  I have to do everything in a 45 minute block in order to have time to walk down to the pool, change, swim, change and walk back as I am doing most session over my lunch break.  Here are a few routines I have tried:

Warm up for 10 minutes.  One minute at hard pace, one minute recovery.  Repeat 10 times.  Thirty seconds sprint pace, 30 seconds recovery, repeat 10 times.  10 minute cool down

Warm up for 10 minutes.  2 minutes hard pace, 3 minutes medium, repeat that set 5 times.  10 minute cool down.  I also have tried on the last set of the 2 hard, 3 easy, doing sprints on the hard down the shorter sides of the pool.

Warm up for 10 minutes.  For 10 minutes alternate between hard, sprint and recover.  Change happens when you go from long side to short back to long, back to short etc.  10 minutes medium pace (what i would run for a long run) and 10 minute cool down.

I am still playing around with other ideas.  The rest of this week doesn't look good for swimming, unless I come back to town at night, which is always hard when we get settled in our nightly routines.  The pool is also closed all weekend this weekend for various meets and parties, so won't get to go then either.  The good news is, I have an appointment with the Ortho Dr tomorrow morning.  I am hoping that I will at least be able to get back to walking next week.  I have heard split results on rehab for this type of injury.  I have found some exercises you can do, but most of them seem pretty self explanatory and could be done at home without the cost of a PT session. I have even heard that running slow and low mileage might be an option for next week but I am for once in my life listening to the Dr and doing EXACTLY what he says.  Well, maybe not exactly since he told me to give up running all together.   I finally got the bill from my hospital trip and between the dog's emergency visits and my emergency visit, we are racking up quite the debt and we still haven't gotten the ortho visit bills.  Gulp.  I am praying about it and trying not to worry because I know the Lord will provide as he always does.

In other news, the ROYALS are in the World Series!!!!  Can you believe it?  We are shocked and delighted!  My hubby has been a Royals/Chiefs fan since he moved to KS, but I have been slow to warm up to either teams.  I use to be a HUGE baseball fan but fell out of love with the sport during the last strike.  I was really into the  Oakland A's and loved The Bash Brothers and the whole dang pitching staff including Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley.  I had the green and gold satin jacket from Eastbay.  If you are a child of the 90s, you know what I am talking about.  They were super cool and I saved up my money and bought my own, which made it that more awesome.  After the strike, I refused to watch baseball ever again.  Fast forward to a few years ago, when I was in my 7th month of pregnancy, I started spending much more time on the couch.  For those of you who know me, I am not much for sitting still for very long, so it was a shock to everyone that I slowed down and sat down LOL.  We started watching royals baseball on tv at nights since I was stationary, and I saw some really talented players who were just on the cusp of getting it together.  Fast forward once again and we are still in shock.  The boys in blue have gone on a tear and are doing phenomenal!  We can't wait to watch them rock it out in the World Series!

I will get an updated post up post Dr visit tomorrow! Keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I have so missed my running and the stress relief/high it gives me!

Things that I LOVE fall edition!

Things that make me happy.  Been trying to stay positive as I watch race after race pass that I am not running in.

The first thing is running blogs.  Almost every runner blog that I follow has had an injury that they have had to deal with and they have wrote about very candidly.  I really appreciate their honesty about thing they tried or doctor's visits they have had and the triumphs and set backs.  I love reading and going back through their blogs to find out how things turned out ultimately.

This gum.  It's the little things.  I am truly addicted.

Target pop corn and coke icees!  One bag lasts our whole family for several days.  I don't normally drink soda or regular soda but you can't beat the taste of a coke icee!  Little red loves the popcorn.

Beautiful fall weather.  I SO love this time of year.  This was behind a coffee shop we like and in front of the Flint hill's discovery center.  I wish I was running in this weather,

but I will take at least getting to bike in it.

All things pumpkin!  I finally found the pumpkin spice oreos!  They aren't the bee's knees but they are pretty good.  I am also digging pumpkin flavored beers of all kinds since I am not training.  I missed drinking beers. While I still only drink 2 at the most at a time, I am enjoying what I had been missing.  

This lady!!!!!   I can't say ENOUGH about my BRF!  While I am injured, she is adjusting her training schedule to bike and swim with me.  She even is wanting to walk when they release me to walking and has pledged to do any walking/run intervals I may have to do.  She keeps my spirits up and gives me the therapy sessions I need to stay sane through this injury:)  

This little guy!  Everything is a discovery and an adventure.  While he has his bad days, most days are so much fun with him.  We have recently turned him around in his car seat and he can see stuff while we drive and is constantly yelling stuff out that he sees. I am really loving being a mommy to a two legger.  Eating and potty training are very spotty and we are working on consistency with both.  Napping can also be a chore but most days we still get 2 hours in.  Every day is a new word and a new skill and it is so much fun watching him grow and develop.