Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

No running. Biked to gym and did 20 minutes on the recumbant bike, some light lifting, and my core and stretching exercises. The recumbant biking is an experiment to if it affects my knee at all. If it doesn't, I'll continue doing it. Can't really tell today, will know my how my knee feels tomorrow.

I'm going to start giving daily rankings (scale of 1-10) to my various injuries as a way for me to track progress (or lack thereof).

SI joint: 8 -- some stiffness, but not bad

Lower back: 5 -- woke up very stiff in morning

Knee: 7 -- some inflammation, probably from gardening yesterday

Plantar faciitis: 6 -- a little sore in morning, but walking without a limp by evening; better than at this point in the day yesterday

No running. Biked to work. Did stretches and core exercises in evening.

Ailment ratings:

SI joint: 8 -- no change

lower back: 6 -- less stiff this morning, loosened up during day

knee: 5 -- more inflammed than yesterday; maybe recumbant bike put to much stress on it

plantar fasciitis: 6.5 -- some improvement over yesterday

No running. Biked to gym, and warmed up muscles on elliptical for 5 minutes, then did stretching and core strength routine, along with some light lifting.

One bit of good news: since I've stopped running, not only have I maintained my weight, but have actually lost a couple pounds. I'm now at 137, and just have 4 more pounds to get back to "college weight". This is unprecidented; usually I put on weight within days after ending training. I think the main reason why I'm still losing weight is because I've cut back from two PB&J sandwiches at lunch to one. Today I calculated the number of calories in one PB&J sandwich, and it came out to 460. I had no idea it would be that high, so cutting those calories is certainly helping. Also, although I am not really doing much cardio training, my core strength and stretching routine takes about 1 hour or more every day. While it's not running, it's still burning more calories than just sitting on my butt. I'll have to wear a HR monitor sometime to get an idea of what it's doing.

Ailment ratings:

SI joint: 8 -- no change

lower back: 7 -- less stiff this morning, so good improvement over last two days

knee: 6 -- still a little inflamed, but better than yesterday

plantar fasciitis: 7 -- slow, steady improvement; the "morning effect" quite subdued when I got up, which is good. Hopefully I will get my night boot today.

******

Late day addendum:

Such a beautiful day today...I snuck out of work at 4:30 and went for an 55-minute bike ride from my house up to where the single track starts on the Logan Canyon River Trail. This is about 13 miles total, give or take. I didn't do any single track because of time constraints and also I didn't want to get out of my saddle and stress my knee or foot at all. Everything felt great, except the left side of my back got a little sore after a while from the biking posture. My HR was in the 150s during segments where I was working hard.

No running. Rode bike to work and did an hour worth of therapy stretches and core exercises in the evening. I got my night boot today, which will stretch my plantar fascia while I sleep. The PF has been getting a little better every day, to the point where I can't feel it much, so I'm optimistic about running in a few weeks.

Ailment rankings:

SI joint: 8 -- no change

lower back: 6 -- left side of back quite sore, probably from biking yesterday; otherwise fine

knee: 7.5 -- quite a bit better than yesterday; could put shoes and socks on with no pain, but still cannot go to full squat

plantar fasciitis: 7.5 -- more improvement over yesterday

The improvement has been encouraging, although I'm jealous to all those running Ogden this weekend. It's a great course and a great race, so good luck to everyone!

No running. Woke up with extremely sore and stiff lower back. Maybe if I never went to sleep, my back would actually feel good. We bought a new, expensive mattress a few months ago, but it didn't make any difference (although it is quite comfy). Went to the gym in morning and did 15 minutes on elliptical; HR ~145. Everything seemed to hold up okay on elliptical, so I may do more of that next week. My back loosened up some as usual over course of day, but as I write this around early evening, it's getting sore again. Time for more ice and ibuprofin.

Ailment ratings:

SI joint: 8 -- no change

lower back: 4 -- hurts, not much flexbility

knee: 9 -- better than ever; could go down to full squat under my own power with no pain

plantar fasciitis: 7.5 -- about the same as yesterday; not much limp, and it tolerated the elliptical well

No running. Rode bike over to gym in morning, did 20 minutes of elliptical; ave HR 135. Ailment ratings: SI joint: 8 -- no change lower back: 5 -- still pretty stiff and sore, but a little better than yesterday; seems to be loosening up better as the day goes on too knee: 9 -- no change, which is good. Still lacking a little strength, and I hope to strengthen my quads over the next few weeks in preparation for running again plantar fasciitis: 7.5 -- same as yesterday, may be a little better; wore night boot for the first full night last night...well almost the full night. I think I had it strapped on too tightly and I woke up at 4:30AM because my big toe and achilles were hurting. I was pretty concerned at first because I thought the brace was messing up something, but then realized that it was just digging into the skin at those points and I was getting something similar to chaffing. But the brace seemed to work, as I had very little pain in the morning. Hopefully I will get more used to it since I will be wearing it for many months.