What a week!!!

This week started out with my youngest getting the stomach flu. That night, she stubbed her toe. The next day, my cold decided to make its appearance. And that night, the bruising on Emily's toe got bad pretty fast so we took a trip to the ER where we learned that her toe was actually broken! They taped it up and mentioned that she needed a special shoe to walk in for a few weeks but they didn't have one to fit her tiny little feet.

So yesterday morning, I spent a good hour on the phone calling local medical supply stores and doctors trying to find one of these shoes. No one had it and doctors wanted to actually see her in order to give her one. I finally found someone to see her that same day. Then I wanted to take a nap, that was exhausting.

I brought a copy of one of her xrays from the ER with me to the doctor and he didn't think it was actually broken, rather just severely bruised. So he took a couple of his own and decided her toe IS broken, just not in the same spot the ER doctor thought. He taped it up with different tape and gave her a new shoe.No gym class for three weeks, keep the shoe on for that long as well, then another trip to the doctor to see how she's doing.

Now it's Friday. I still have my cold, but I am hoping for an uneventful weekend!

Resting today

I did a 30 minute run yesterday. It was the first time my shins have bothered me since I started this running style. It was mild, but still a little bothersome. Not sure if it was from pushing a 25 minute and a 30 minute run back to back like that, plus all the walking in Chicago. Maybe my body just isn't quite used to that yet. So I am resting today to let my body heal up a bit.

I admit, this disappoints me a bit. Shin pain was the biggest reason I went with minimalism and I haven't had it since I made the switch. Hopefully this won't last and it won't bother me again.

I can't wait for the day I can just go out and run 5 miles without a second thought!

Still hurting

I hate this. Woke up Sunday and my feet hurt. Not too bad, but noticeable enough. Today, they are a little better but still hurt. I am at a loss. I am not sure if it's injury pain or if my feet muscles are simply sore. Ugh.

So this morning, I have a dilemma. Run or not run? Barefoot shoes or try my regular shoes? Why can't my feet just get completely better?

Dilemma Update: I decided to go on the treadmill (raining outside) with my barefoot shoes. Today is my final run in Week 3. I felt good during my warmup, noticed a little burning in my right foot. I am guessing (hoping) that is from working my muscles. During my run, I felt pretty good. Noticed I was scrunching up my toes and had to keep forcing myself to relax my feet. Did my cool down, stretched pretty good. My feet actually feel better post-run, not sure if that is due to the advil I took ahead of time or just from working and stretching my muscles. I will go with the latter, it makes me happier. I am hoping I am past the actual injury and my current pain is from building up my feet. That makes me happy too.

Well, it's Saturday...

And both of my feet are feeling great! I wouldn't say they are 100%, maybe about 90% to 95%.

Thursday, I wasn't so sure I would be healed by today. I was still in quite a bit of pain and limping. Still praying for healing, I had happened to come across some ballet stretches for feet. I tried a couple out on and off throughout the day. It hurt so bad, my right foot was so tight, I could barely get on my tippy toes. After a few reps, I felt my foot release and there was less pain. I woke up Friday feeling shockingly good, continued stretching whenever I had a few moments (busy day) and it no longer hurt to stretch. I woke up today feeling even better. Right now, there is still a little stiffness in my right ankle and I am still walking kinda funny. But there is almost ZERO pain. And that's the most important part.

Prayer works!

I haven't gone for my run yet today, I am hoping to meet up with Pastor at the track later. He is feeling better after some injuries as well and I figured we could lend some support to each other during an easy run. I will update post-run!

UPDATE: I did Week 3 of Couch to 5k, I figured I would repeat a couple runs of that since I lost so much time from healing. I admit, my feet did hurt. But it was tolerable and it didn't get worse. I figure one one Week 3 run and I will move on to Week 4. As long as my feet cooperate. So here is to continued healing!

Foot pain

My foot is slowly getting better. It hurts less to just walk around, I am almost not limping! However, I still get a sharp pain when I land mid-foot. I am trying my best to hold out till Saturday before I run again. I am praying that by then it will be healed enough to go out. This beautiful, cool weather is killing me!

I still believe it was caused by over-tight calf muscles. Another tidbit of interest I picked up was to make sure your heel lands on the ground with the mid-foot strike. Otherwise, your calf muscles won't lengthen and will get too tight. I know my heels weren't even touching the ground when I run uphill (unfortunate side-effect of living where I do). So when I get back out there, I will need to make a conscious effort to lower my heels.

I am starting to get a little antsy too. I even gained a few pounds already from only running once in 10 days. I need to keep my stomach in-check, but it's hard when one of my medications seems to make me hungry! I did buy a giant bag of broccoli to snack on. But I have a feeling it won't satisfy my craving for something sweet. Grrr.....

Hurry up foot! I am begging you!

Week 3 (week of Sept. 4)

Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following: Jog for 90 seconds, walk for 90 seconds. Jog for 3 minutes, walk for three minutes.

After my first run, I was injured. The top of my right foot was killing me. I was not expecting this, I hadn't read anything about it. I opted to take 5 days off to see if it would get better. I iced and took motrin religiously. I loosened my laces in case that was the problem. I read everything I could online about this kind of pain and the same things kept coming up: tendinitis and stress fracture of the metatarsal. Now, I have fractured a metatarsal, so I wahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs 99.9% sure that wasn't it. Not sure I believed the tendinitis either. It sucked though, I could hardly walk.

After the 5 days, I did my second run of the week. I was feeling slightly better and had a fabulous run. I let go and really sprinted for one of the 3 minute runs. It felt so good. But the next day, my left foot started hurting too (my right foot was no worse though). So gimpy me has been limping like crazy, hoarding ice packs and eating a diet of anti-inflammatory pain-killers.

I finally found a barefoot running blog that explained my top of the foot pain. Basically, the tight calves I had the previous week caused my feet muscles a lot of strain. If I would have stretched properly and a lot more than usual, I may have avoided this. Bummer.

So I am taking a full week off to recover. My right foot feels like it is on the mend and I don't think my left foot will get quite as bad. So instead of running, I am concentrating on strength and flexibility. I did a yoga/pilates dvd this morning and I have no doubt I will be feeling that more than my feet tomorrow!

I plan to run on Saturday and since I only did 2 runs of Week 3, I plan on doing 2 more before I move on to Week 4. That one always seems to be the hardest for me.