Finally, I Can Run Again!

So two and a half weeks ago you might recall that i ran a half marathon.  In doing so I hurt my left Achilles badly enough that I was limping for about a week and in quite a bit of pain any time I had to stretch the back part of my leg.  The second week of that injury it was just sore to stretch it. 

Sunday I set out to run 5k and only made it 3 before I put the brakes on that endeavour due to the fact I felt the tightness in my leg.  I stretched some at home and decided that what I really need to do was stretch my leg a bit every day until it permanently loosens up.  It turns out that doing push ups and the position that your foot goes in while doing so is the *perfect* way to stretch out my Achilles, or seems to be to me at least.  So I’ve been back on the push ups and at the same time helping out my leg.  Nice.

Last night after work I did a few errands(which turned out fruitless – you can’t just get a couple cheques at the bank any more, and my new shirt was not ready yet), and then came home and ran.  I thought about stopping at 3k again, my leg did hurt a little bit.  Then typical me thought, no, I can do this, I can’t let this injury rule me.  So I went further, passing by the house again and completing my 5k run.  Has it happens, it was my fastest pace since the 5k Kms For Care race, and I finished in 22:55!  Any time I am over 13km/h I would consider that success!

This morning my leg is a little bit tight, but I don’t think any worse than if I had stopped at 3k.  Was it my smartest idea to just go all out and test my leg like that?  Probably not, but hey, I’ve got to build character somehow.

Friend Making Monday–Questions & Answers

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here and over at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

 

1. Do you use coupons? 

Very rarely, usually for things like tickets to the movies

2. How often do you weigh yourself? 

I used to weigh myself every single day, for like two and a half years!  Now it’s just once a week.

3. What was your favourite TV show as a kid? 

Depends on what age you asked me that, the list goes like this:

• He-man
• Ghostbusters
• Ninja Turtles
• G.I. Joe
• Batman: The Animated Series

4. How often do you drink alcohol?

I don’t.  I only have maybe four or five times and each thing I tried I have thought was gross

5. Have you ever met a celebrity or public figure that you really admire?

Yeah, Guy Carrbonneau, at the time coach of the Montreal Canadiens

6.  If you had to choose between only your cell phone or only your laptop all week which would you choose? 

Laptop, I can do more with it.

7. What is your favourite brand of detergent? 

Tide.  my mom tried other brands a couple times when I was a kid and it made me all itchy.

8. If there was a movie about your life, who would play the role? 

Young Harrison Ford?  There was an FMM a while ago that asked a similar question and Amber thought it should be Chris Evans

9.  What book are you currently reading? 

Not reading anything at the moment.  Waiting for Volume 2 of Action Comics, and Superman at the moment.

10.  If you could spend one day on vacation anywhere in the world, which place would you choose? 

New Zealand, in the hobbit village they have there now.

 

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions.  Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments, and say hi to someone new!  Happy Monday!

Dealing With Adversity

I read All The Weigh pretty often, and this post here made me wonder at the time if I was glad I started my blog after I was done losing weight.  Simply because if I blogged during the time I was losing I would have had to mull around and address these types of self doubt and self-worth feelings of is it worth it?  Is it ever going to get better?  Why should I even care? in my head.  Instead, I had a glass of water and went to sleep exhausted.

I think that the people around me looked on at what I was doing and figured, there is no self doubt there, just drive.  Believe me there were moments where I wondered why I was practically starving myself and working like a dog!

I was noticing in myself, through, reading that post, that Kenlie and I have very different ways of dealing with adversity, or self doubt or whatever you want to call it.  Kenlie was there addressing it, in her own mind and then out in the public as well.  I hid it, I just tucked it away and gave it the finger.  I do that a lot, with a whole bunch of things, why air things out when you can just squirrel it away until it's fixed, and then work like an insane person to fix it.

Kenlie’s is probably a much healthier way to deal with things like that.

Part of my comment to the post is “To the point though, I wonder if you look at the whole thing not as dieting, not as making yourself workout, but as an integral change.  When I was on the losing weight route, I made the gym the #1 thing to do for the day.  Not that I did it first, but that I sacrificed whatever it took to get there, sorry can't do this other thing, I need and hour and a bit for the gym.  Once that became ingrained in me after a couple weeks, it wasn't even an effort anymore, it was just what I did.  I was a crappy friend and a non-existent fiancée for the whole time I was dropping the pounds because the gym was first, screw everything else.”

Just this week we have had to switch from oil to natural gas for heating the house, it’ll be a process that costs about $4000.  Problem is we don’t have that cash and like so many other people we live pretty much to the dollar.  Or Did, would be more accurate I guess.  Amber is the one that generally looks after the budgeting in our house and I just like a general idea of where I am at.  But the other night we sat down together and simply had to apply my thinking above to our budget.  It was not my idea in the start of it all.  I like the very comfortable lifestyle we have had for the last few years, but if this furnace is going to get paid for, and other things are going to get better money-wise then, it’s got to be ‘Manage money well and screw everything else!’

One of the things that means for me is no more gym membership, which in the non-winter months is not an issue anymore, I have weights here at home, I have roads to run and bike on.  From November to March it might be tricky, but it has to be done.  And if I have learned anything about myself in the last three years, it’s that if something really has to get done, I (or we in this case) will make it happen.

The point of the matter is, whether it’s about training or money, or something else, I think everyone from time to time feels like 'What is the point?'  or  'Why am I not getting where I want?' or 'How do I make this work?' It's how you respond to those personal questions that decides if you will succeed.  Are you making a band-aide repair to treat the symptoms , or changing things at a more basic level to solve the cause of the problem?

Two Weeks

That is how long it has been since I have run anywhere.  That half marathon that I was told by so many that I could just up and do put me on the shelf for two whole weeks.  Now to be fair I still rode my bike and worked out and all that, but I couldn’t run.

There is an important lesson in here somewhere, and I think that lesson for me is, if I am going to do something that ridiculous again, I need to train for it better.  The other lesson is ‘know your limitations’.  If running a long way really sucks for you, why endeavour to do it? I like running 5k or 10k, every time I would get over the 12k mark or so my enjoyment dropped like a stone, and it was more of a ‘how much pain can I endure?’ type of thing. 

My mind was willing, my heart and lungs were willing, my joints and ligaments were what was fighting me.  The good thing now is that I can say I have done it, in under two hours at that, and I never have to do it again!

So how have I recovered?  I followed some advice from my RMT and iced it during the first week, then I got a massage the following Saturday, that helped a lot.  I went to the chiropractor just Monday past and she stripped my calf and soleus muscle.  I have never willingly been put through that much pain!  Am I healed 100%?  Hmmm I’d say maybe 95%, the muscles and tendons are a bit stiff and need to be stretched and there is some pain involved in that, but it’s getting there.

I’m going to run today, just 5k and see how it responds.  I am hoping favourably so that I can resume my usual workout schedule, though only being able to ride my bike has been pretty great too!