I'm not crazy...I'm just bored!!

3 miles of hiking/walking in Snow Canyon with the family - SO beautiful!! You can't strap a boot to my foot for 6  weeks and expect me not to get a little red dirt on it :)

2 early morning spin classes. Baby got some nasty cough/croup thing this weekend so I can't take him to the nursery. He is going to the doctor this afternoon though. I got my 120 minutes of cardio in, so I'm good.

Guess who has two thumbs and gets to be OUT of the boot now?!? YUP!! This girl!

Went to the dr today and I've got a nice big bone callus around the fracture and it is looking quite nice. So, I get to kick the boot to the curb. I must wear sturdy soled shoes all the time now, but at least I'm out of that dumb, stupid, heavy, klunky boot!! I can do spin  class with my hard soled spin shoes and walk on the TM and do pretty much anything other than running and high impact (so no heavy resistance and standing on the bike). I'm SO excited to be out of the boot it is unreal! YAY! However, walking and being able to bend my ankle is SO weird - this normal walking thing is going to take some time to get used to. I have an appointment with the PT tomorrow to get some exercises to strengthen my ankle and calf so that in 2 weeks when I'm allowed I can get back to running in good form! YAY! On my way back baby!

So, onto the nasty part of this entry (for my own crazy blogging purposes). So, baby has croup. blech. That I can deal with, but they gave him steroids to help with the breathing issues and dang my baby is SO ornery when he is on steroids. So, he went to bed last night and after 90 minutes woke up screaming. After 20 minutes I went and got him out of bed and all he wanted was milk, so I got him a cup of milk and he finally settled down and I let him sleep/snuggle in bed with dad and me. Well, this pattern repeated itself FIVE more times through the night. Once I thought I was done...completely done and so tired I just wanted it to be morning and it was only 2:30. Man alive, what a horrible night. So, when my alarm went off to go to the gym I just turned it off and tried to sleep for another hour and a half - HA! Anyway, so it was a long sleepless night and I never made it to the gym and I can't put baby in daycare to get it in during the day. Oh, well. A recovery day will do me good. Mentally and physically.

Thanks for listening to the good, the bad and the ugly today. I'm loving life out of foot jail!

spin class sans boot. feels strange. PT appointment today to get my rehab plan so I can get back at my running!

Okay, well at the PT's office yesterday I just got one piece of good news after another! I am SO excited about my 'back to RUNNING' plan I can hardly contain myself! So, I am going to chat a little bit about it today on my blog - so feel free to read on, but I guess I'm doing this more for my info (in case I lose my paper) than anyones :) Good reference!

So, from the orthopedic doc I have band exercises to strenghten my ankle and calf. When one of them said balancing on one foot for 30 seconds I guffawed - c'mon 30 seconds? Whatever. Until I tried it. With my ankle and foot being immobilized for the past 4.5 weeks I've lost a LOT more strength and stability than I think I'd like to admit. I couldn't balance for more than 5-10 seconds the first try! I'm up to almost a full 30 today though, so good improvement :) So, I do the PT stuff 3X per day - good excuse to sit and watch TV :)

The PT explained some very good things to me while I was there! First off, the best news was that I've probably rid myslef of my PF problems :) keeping your foot at a 90 degree angle and immobilized for 4.5 weeks really helps with flexibility! He used to say giving me a 5 degree flexion was being generous - I'm now well over 10! So, if I keep this flexibility up as I gain strength back I won't have much to worry about as far as any PF returning - bonus!

Next good news is that he could FEEL the callous on the bone (he was surprised how far up on my foot the break was, he assumed it was closer to the toe joint, but it is in the middle of my foot). He kept having people come over and feel it! I was the sideshow for the lunch break crowd :) He said this was a great sign. This means that the break is now one of the strongest areas of bone in my body right now. Also, since it wasn't a SF, but a full fracture there is little to no worry about ever re-breaking the area. SF's can create a problem area, but I guess your body heals a full fracture better...I don't know, I just repeat what I'm told :) So, my bone/foot is now strong and I AM ready to get back at it!! YAY!

So, now how TO get back at it. First and foremost is strengthening back my calf and ankle. I'm to do the stuff from the doc and add calf STRETCHING along with it. Also, heel raises...lots and lots of heel raises. If I don't get proper strength back before I run I risk Achilles problems - YUCK! No thank you. So, I will be dilligent about popping up my heels every time I'm standing around - new bouncing RAD :) The other neat thing he talked to me about is that once I get the balance thing going is to use the resistance band not on the feet. What?!? I was confused. He said that I should balance on one foot then pull with my arms/torso to the sides. This helps strengthen the foot from the bottom up, which is the kind of strength your body needs while running. Doing the band on your foot is great, but developing the stability and strength from the bottom up is better. Awesome. I love learning things like that!

While I do all the strengthining/stability stuff I still need to get cardio in. Well, this is where the fun starts!! He said that biking is great cardio, but doesn't translate well for running (like 30% of your time on the bike can be converted to equivalent miles. So one hour of spinning is 20 min equal effort running - no wonder I could easily do 3 spin classes!). So, now that my ankle can bend I get to use the elliptical which has a better conversion (more like 1 hour of elliptical is 40 min equal effort running). So, I can start on the bike to get warmed up, move to elliptical and then to the TM...yes, I said the TM!!!

Here is the most exciting news: Running at a 6% incline is equal IMPACT on the body to walking at a flat. Because of the way it forces you to run, it  not only helps your form, but decreases the impact on your body. Crazy! So, I'm going to get to start out running at a 6% incline. I guess I'll learn to love hills :) Before I can start that I have to regain strength and walk at a 6% without pain for at least 3 days for 20 minutes before I can even think about turning up the speed! Also, running at a 6% incline translates equivalent effort to flat miles. So, if I can only run at 5mph on a 6% incline, but that same effort would net me 7.5 mph - after an hour my body has had the equivalent training to 7.5 miles! Even though I really only ran 5, my body feels it as 7.5. How awesome! It will still be the same effort, but I can start getting 'more' miles in faster! I will only count what I actually run, but I will know my body will be ready for more when I'm ready to take the flat/down/outdoors impact. Awesome! He also suggested that I take this approach to high mileage training for Ogden. Run a day a week at 6% - less impact and will give my body more of a chance to recover mid-week. I love learning cool stuff like this and my PT is seriously a 'google' on facts and studies about this kind of stuff! He knows it all at a drop of a hat.

With all that said, I will now start with bike and/or elliptical and then do 20-30 minutes of uphill walking. When there is no pain with the uphill walking I can start RUNNING...uphill :) I will take running at 6% if that is what I can do! I will slowly increase the run time until I can successfully run 30 min at 6% incline. When this happens I get to drop the incline % on the run 2% per week until I'm flat, all the while gradually increasing mileage (he said that usually they advise 15% per week, but since this wasn't a SF, but a dumb accident that I should be able to ramp back to my 40/week quicker than that). Then I get to enjoy the lovely out of doors! I am SO excited to have a plan to get back to running starting NOW and not in 3-4 weeks. I may just make Ogden afterall. Plus, since hills are speed work in disguise I may not lose all that much speed, so I may be able to shoot for my coveted 3:35 there as well...but, I can't count these chickens before they hatch.

So, I was excited to get to the gym this morning - even with having to wake up early! :) There weren't any ellipticals available, so I started on the TM (didn't bring spin shoes) walking 6% for 12 minutes @ 3mph until an elliptical opened up. I did 45 min there at 10 incline and 12 resistance. Good sweaty workout, and now my muscles are confirming the fact that spinning is great cardio, but doesn't translate well to running equivalencies. It was harder than I would've liked it to be, dang it. Then I went back to the TM for another 6% walk at 3.2 mph for 13 minutes. So, a total of 25 min walking - looking good so far on pain quotient. The problem is that my foot muscles have atrophied so much they get sore, I know it is not break/bone pain - I know that all too well, this is also not in the same place. More PT exercises all day! My calf is getting sore :) good news all around!

If you actually read all of this, you probably learned something new :) Thanks for hanging in there with me! I'm on my way back baby!

Okay, before you yell at me - hear me out!

Hubby was nice and worked from home a bit this morning so that I didn't have to get up super early to workout. It was nice to see some of my regular gym rat friends :)

Started on the elliptical and I had to use a weirdo one that seemed more like running motion, because the ones I like (without moving handles) were all gone. Spent 23 minutes there until one I liked opened up. Finished 37 minutes off there. Then, I went to the TM.

I started walking at my 6% and was up to 4mph - yeeehaw! At about 6 minutes, I was bored. I thought about running, maybe I could try...just one minute. Since I was going to do 30 minutes of walking every 10 min I could do the last 1 min of each set running. Just ONE minute.

So, I tried it out! I was only running 5.3-5.5 mph and again, was at my 6% incline. The only problem was that the running felt better on my foot than the walking! Strange. I don't know exactly why or if I was just dreaming this to feel this way. I have an email into my PT to ask him about this quandry. Either way, I kept myself only to the 1 minute. So, I finished up 3 total minutes of running - woohoo! A total of a 1/4 mile-ish. Hey, I'll take it. Loggin' the miles...or fractions thereof :)

Still also working the PT stuff 3X per day - my calf is SO sore. It is crazy sore, I didn't realize how much I didn't use it, until I did :) Also, the tendons and ligaments on the bottom of my feet are feeling this new walking stuff too. I know it is NOT fracture point pain, I know what that feels like. This is just my body getting back to normal. This is how I know I'm not ready to jump up and run off on a nice easy 6 mile loop. Easy does it, easy does it.

Patience = the new endurance sport!

Similar to yesterday. Started with 30 min on the elliptical to warm things up, then since I didn't have enough time to do 30 min on the TM before spin class started I just did 15 min, but ran on the 4's instead of the 9's. 

1 hour spin class. Holy moly I don't remember sweating that bad in quite some time - must've been too far from the fans! 

Back to the TM to finish up my 30 min walking. 15 min with only one 1 min run on the 9 this time. Still at my 6% and 3.7-4.0 walking speed at 5.5 'running' speed. I guess uphill an 11mm isn't so bad, right? please make me feel better about this one....