The World Is Just Awesome

Things have been going pretty good lately! I called my doctor last week after running a little bit of hills with my friend, Shannon, on Tuesday and told him my Achilles had been acting up again.

It had been manageable with ice and ibuprofen, but it also didn't seem to be getting better again over a week or 2 (and the hills probably didn't help) so he gave me another prescription for Prednisone, which is my new favorite magical drug! 

I started taking it Thursday morning and took that day completely off to help it out a little. Friday I just swam, then Saturday I felt good enough to go ahead and do my 7 mile long run. I chose to go with the leg warmer look again. :)

I did 2 loops, and did the first 4 miles pretty slow, then I went out for my second loop of 3 miles and just kicked it into gear. It was awesome that I was able to run fast like that at the end of my long run! I felt really good and was really happy with my time!

And I was also hot in my jacket so I took it off and finished my run in a tank top! In February. In Salt Lake. I had a little bit of mixed feelings about that because I don't feel like I got enough snowboarding in this season yet, but it did feel awfully nice!

I keep telling myself that it's not really spring though. This happens every year. We'll get more snow. I hope.

Later that day, we took the kids to the climbing gym. It was fun. I just went up one quick route before we had to leave to go get Mindy from ballet, but anything is better than nothing! Ethan and Elle both did great, and George made it about 2/3 the way up his route! I was impressed! Here he's showing off his slack lining skills.

Pete took the time to get certified for lead climbing and belaying with his friend who was there, which you have to do at The Front before you're allowed to do either of those things for safety reasons. Pete has obviously lead and belayed a ton, but has just never taken the time to get certified here. For the test, they have you take a fall, and he hurt his ankle! Luckily it was better after a few days, and his own Prednisone prescription!

Monday I made it to spin class and swimming! WIN! I also got this beautiful shot of the sunset while Elle and George were playing outside, enjoying the nice weather. I captioned it, "Another beautiful Monday comes to a close. Remember that dreams CAN come true on a Tuesday." on my Instagram. (I got this idea from that film I linked to on my last post.)

Tuesday was another nice day. I headed out with a long sleeve shirt on, but ended up tying it around my waist which is always nice! I was also happy with the time I was able to pull off! I pretty much just tried to do my middle mile fast, and the first and last mile were kind of a moderate/fun pace. I was also really excited to find my iFitness belt that has been missing for quite a while! Such perfect timing since it's just starting to get too warm to bring a jacket with pockets to put my phone in. It must be a sign from the running gods! :)

Tuesday night, I tagged along with Pete and his friend to the climbing gym where we had a great night! Look at what a stud my husband is!

I warmed up on an easy route, then tried a harder one on top rope and fell so I came down and took a break. Then I tried it again and finished it without any problems so that felt good! Then I decided I wanted to get lead certified as well so I called guy down to give me the test.

He had me go up a little past the third bolt then do kind of a surprise fall. It was not easy to make myself fall on purpose! But I did it. Unfortunately, the route had kind of gone to the left of the bolts (I think I was holding on to the black hold on that big green appendage) so when I fell I went sideways and slammed my right foot into the wall pretty hard. Of course that's the foot that's already injured and it really jolted my ankle. In a different spot though. Dang it! (I ended up about waist level with that first black hold at the bottom of this picture.) My first instinct was that I was hurt and that I should just come down. But then I was like, "No, I don't not finish my routes!" So I got back on and finished it! Wahoo! I had so much adrenaline, it felt amazing! :)

It's pretty shadowy, but here I am putting the rope into the lockers and officially passing the lead climbing portion of the test. (Actually the guy said I didn't need to finish it, I would have still passed if I'd come down after my fall, but it made it feel more final.)

Hey, what do you know, dreams do come true on a Tuesday! Am I right!? :)

I hurried and did the belay portion of the test and passed that just fine. Then it was time to head home. I was limping pretty badly so I iced it when we got home even though it was already midnight. Later I woke up at about 4am with my head and ankle just aching, and still too much adrenaline in my body to get back to sleep. I got up and ate some oatmeal so I could take my pills a little early (I just take them once a day in the mornings), then iced my ankle again before falling back to sleep. When I got up a few hours later it felt a lot better! Whew! I still wrapped it and babied it today, but I don't think it's going to be too serious.

Luckily today was just a swim day so I didn't even have to miss any workouts. I was just a little extra careful when pushing off the wall to be gentle and use both feet evenly. (I should have done that when I fell too! But what do you do but learn from these things?)

I've been doing the Intermediate/Advanced "Increase Speed Category" as my fitness goal with my Speedo Pace Club app on my phone and it's been really fun! It's good for me to have a set goal and set workouts to do. This way I know I'm going to have 3 workouts a week, and I don't ever have to wonder what I'm going to do. It goes for 8 weeks, and I did Week 3: Workout 2 today. Here's part of what my workout looked like (with just the warm up cut off), I just switched out paddles and pull buoy for the kicking just to be safe.

For those who care and are so inclined to shreak in joy with me, my fast 100s were: 1:26, 1:28 and 1:28! Not shabby, right? I did all the 100s on 2:00 so I had pretty good rests.

I went back to the pool later in the afternoon to take the kids swimming and basically just walked around in the water while George played. It felt good on my foot and I'm happy with how good it feels now. I just iced it again and I'm hopeful it will feel good enough to run on tomorrow.

It was totally worth it to take that fall, though, by the way. I am excited to start leading more which seems to kind of be an overall theme of my new life. It's a little more scary, but I love it!

Now to finish this post with more awesomeness, here is the Discovery Channel Commercial that my kids watched like 20 times in a row when we got home from swimming. And I still love it. I love the whole world!