Not an Injury!

Things have been going so well with my training. I've been getting all my workouts in, working really hard and loving it! So, what do I do? I go and hurt myself, of course!

Yesterday morning, I slept in and made cinnamon french toast for everyone, so I didn't get to the pool until George's morning nap. It was a pretty quick workout: 250 warmup, 2 x 500 for the main set, and 250 cool down for a total of 1500 yards.

When I got home, I thought about just heading right out on my run, but just as I was thinking that, George woke up. By the time I got him fed and taken care of, it was time to take Elle to her play date. I had planned on doing my run while she was there, but when I got home George showed no sign of sleeping and I didn't want to leave him with Pete awake because he had work to do. So I just sat around waiting for him to fall asleep, getting more and more depressed about my day not going as planned. I kept thinking, "I shouldn't have slept in." or, "I should have just ran from the gym real quick instead of waisting time walking home." When he finally went to sleep, it was time to pick Elle up which would use up most of his nap time. I was being pretty grouchy about this, and Mindy said, "You're nicer when you run." Oops.

I decided I would just run later in Heber since we were heading up there to visit my dad after lunch.

Even after I decided this, I still felt kind of depressed and it took me a little while to fix my attitude. I knew it would be nice to run in Heber so I just kept telling myself that. I don't know what my problem was. I need to be more flexible and not get so upset when things don't go exactly as planned. It's hard because I have to plan out my days in order to get all my workouts in, and it's scary when that gets messed up because the chances of me running in the evening are very, very slim. I always hate working out at night.

We got in the car, I turned on some Vampire Weekend, and we stopped at Ruby Snap on our way out of town. They have the most delicious cookies known to man, especially during April when the cookie of the month is Billy Ann (a coconut carrot curry cookie with coconut cream frosting = Heaven!). This helped my mood considerably!

We got to my dad's house before he got home from work so we just relaxed for an hour. When he got home, he gladly took George (who was being a dream baby of course) so I could go run. I headed out on what I thought was a 5 mile loop that I used to do when I lived there. It took me about 5 steps to look around at the mountains and be so grateful to be running there! It was so beautiful. After about a mile, I passed a heard of shaggy cows. I tried to take a picture, but you can't really tell what they look like.

After another mile I realized that it was not going to be a 5 mile loop so I decided I'd just add a mile on at the end. I was having a nice time and felt really good so this didn't really bother me.

There's a small section of this loop that goes on the highway so I ran clear off the road in the gravel. It was uneven, but nothing crazy. Besides, I want to do a lot of trail running this summer so I figured this would be good practice. Well, I must have taken a wonky step or something because when I had about 2 miles to go, my ankle started hurting.

I stopped to take this picture, then regretted it when I started running again because my ankle was really hurting.

I decided to try to run it off, and that I just wouldn't add the extra mile on the end if it kept hurting too much. After a little while, it did start to feel better, and I was putting in a really good pace on the downhill!

I hit 4 miles and decided my ankle was ok, and that I really wanted to make it to 5 miles so I kept going. I really shouldn't have done this! It started hurting more, but I still brushed it off as sore muscles from not being used to uneven ground. I got home, to this lovely site:

I stretched really good, and thought it wasn't going to be a big deal because it wasn't really hurting. Then I stood up. Ouch. Ok, it still hurt. They didn't have anything to ice it with there so I didn't get ice on it until we got home, about 3 hours later. By then I knew it was really hurt and spent the rest of the evening with ice on it, hoping it would feel better in the morning.

When George woke up during the night, though, I almost cried when I stepped out of bed and put my weight on my foot! I got another ice pack when I went back to bed, still hoping it would feel better in the morning.

It seemed worse this morning, though. I could hardly walk on it! I got up at 6:00 then woke George up and fed him real quick before I went to the pool. This seems to work the best for making sure I'm back before he's hungry again, and he goes back to sleep really well.

I felt like an idiot, limping into the rec center, but I just wanted to see how it felt swimming. If it hurt, I'd just get out, if not there was no reason why I shouldn't get my long swim in.

My workout was 6 x 100, concentrating on different part of stroke each 100 for the warmup. Main set: 4 x 400, keeping each 400 even pace, (alternate 3 x 400), and 2 x 150 pull to cool down for a total of 2500 yards.

It didn't really hurt my foot to swim. I just had to be careful about pushing off the wall, and I'd get a twinge of pain if I flexed it wrong or something, but it wasn't bad. I tried to focus on my form and swim hard, but I couldn't stop thinking about my foot. Worrying about how long it will take to get better, wondering if I'm going to have to skip my long run this week and get even farther behind on my training plan. We're supposed to be at 10 miles, but I was already planning on doing 8.5 instead. Now, who knows!

I finished the 3rd 400, and thought about doing the alternate choice and being done because I did have a hurt foot after all. I was standing there contemplating this, when the guy next to me said, "Hey, you're pretty fast! You're way faster than me!" All I could think to say was, "Thank you," and smile like an idiot. That just totally made my day! He wasn't an old guy or anything either! All thoughts of finishing early left my head, and I hit my last 400 really hard! I think I did it in under 7:50! The other ones were all close to, or even a little over 8:00.

The moment of truth came when I got out of the pool. OUCH! I had to limp pretty badly to the locker room, then back to the car. I really can't put much weight on my foot without it hurting really badly. I was almost crying when I got home, and had decided to go to the doctor as soon as possible. Then Pete looked at it and said it really just seems like a sprain so I decided to wait a day or two and see what happens. I've been trying to ice it and stay off it as much as possible today. Luckily, today seems to be one of George's sleepy days. Let's just hope it feels better tomorrow!