Injury update, weekend happenings, and some stuff in my kitchen!

Hello!

I’d totally say Happy Tuesday but I’m not feeling it today.

A 4am unplanned wake-up call is my reason.

Rain drops.

On my face.

And my bed.

Roof leaked. Water came through ceiling fan. Ceiling fan was on. Water flung errrwhere…..

Mass towel casualties.

In case you wondered, yes, there was a Hellacious rain storm last night!

Lots of flooding in the area. Thankfully, all we dealt with was a little water through the roof. No flooding in our house.

Took me 2 hours to get to work today, though. #goodtimes #notreally

But, that is not what I came to tell you about today!

I interrupt your regularly scheduled Tasty Tuesday to bring you 3 things!

1. An injury update!

2. Some weekend happenings!

3. A short view of what went down in my kitchen on Sunday (since I missed posting it yesterday)!

First up, my foot.

Followed up with the orthopedist yesterday.

It’s definitely a stress fracture and it’s healing! You could see cloudiness (calcium deposits) over the 2nd metatarsal and that’s a good thing!

But, I’m still in the boot. 😦

Okay, I should clarify – she suggested I wear the boot for another week, just to give my foot a little more unhindered healing time.

But, if I take it easy, I don’t have to wear the boot.

Yeah, I’ve never really been one to “take it easy” so…..

But, it’s just a week.

No running or jumping or any type of impact activity for at least 3-4 weeks but I had expected that.

So, one more week in the boot and then, I can wear a pair of shoes! And a pair of pants!!

Seriously, it’s been all skirts and shorts (on the weekends) this whole time.

And the same stinkin’ brown shoe. *sigh*

Annnndddd, moving on….

Weekend things!

I got a hair (or two) cut!!

So simple and easy!

We were lucky enough to be able to attend the christening ceremony of the USS John Warner, SSN-785 on Saturday.

This was, by far, one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

And the hottest. OMG, it was like 100 degrees on Saturday!!!

And, it was outside (obviously) and not under cover.

But, it was totally worth it and I would do it again in a New York minute! 🙂

Sunday cooking!

I did a small amount of food prep on Sunday.

Hey, it’s football season! It’s hard to food prep when your booty is planted in front of the television. 🙂

Anyway, I made some chocolate chip avocado banana bread.

Om. Nom. Nom.

I loosely followed this recipe – chocolate chip banana bread.

I subbed a whole avocado for the stick of butter (admittedly, probably should have only used half an avocado but I wasn’t paying attention. No matter cuz the bread is amazeballs!), nonfat plain greek yogurt for the sour cream, and chocolate chips for the cinnamon chips.

Holy. Yum.

Then, I threw down some of the best curry I’ve ever had.

You definitely need to head over to Erin’s blog to check out her recipe.

I also made some chili in the crockpot but neglected to take a picture.

Hey, with that curry ready to be gobbled, can you blame me?

Anyway, I used this recipe – Paleo Crockpot Chili – but used a pound of ground pork and a pound of ground turkey instead of the beef.  If you make the recipe as listed, it has terrific flavor but not a lot of spice.  If you want spicy chili, you definitely need to up the ingredients with the heat factor.

That said, you didn’t hear me complaining eating it over a sweet tater and topped with avocado yesterday for lunch.

source

Talk to me: Do you like your chili spicy or mild? What’s the most annoying thing to ever wake you up? Banana bread – yay or nay?

– jennifer

Injury update – Who am I if I don’t run?

Hi there!

If you remember from last week, I was waiting for my referral to get approved by Tricare so I could meet with an orthopedist. Well, I got confirmation of the approval on Thursday afternoon and was told that the clinic should be contacting me to schedule the appointment.

Yeah, I’m not that patient.

I waited until about 2pm on Friday and then contacted the clinic myself to “see if they had received my referral yet.” (what can I say, I know my way around scheduling appointments!) The lovely lady that answered the phone pulled me up in the system and got me all set up!

For Monday!!!

As in, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, MONDAY!!!  Whoop!

That NEVER happens in military medicine. I actually pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

I did, really. Got a bruise and everything! No, I didn’t take a picture. Sheesh!

So, the orthopedist – pretty sure she’s brilliant. She listened to me (this is a BIG deal for me as I’ve had doctors who haven’t and I’ve been misdiagnosed and treated improperly), checked out my pudgy foot, reviewed the x-rays that were done last week, and we talked about the present and the future and what we were going to do.

And she gave me some fancy new footwear.

Isn’t it spectacular? #sarcasm

So, here’s what’s going on.

Best case scenario is that it’s a stress fracture.

Never ever thought I would say those words. Why the hell would I want a stress fracture?

Well, because, I don’t want Freiberg’s disease which, according to the orthopedist, is a possibility.

I should be able to recover quickly from a stress fracture. Freiberg’s may have lasting complications.

So, I’m in the boot until at least September 8 when I go back for more x-rays and another appointment.

Obviously, that means no running.

That would be awkward. Could you even imagine?

She did say that I could use a stationary bike (got one of those in my garage!!) and that I could still lift weights – upper body, etc.

She gets me. She really, really gets me! 🙂

So, I went to CrossFit last night!!!

#awkwardmirrorselfie

I hadn’t been since last Monday. I was literally suffering withdrawals!

But, I think it’s apparent that the 50k is out of the question.

I really wanted to do this 50k. I was really excited about it!

I’m disappointed.

I’m disappointed in my body for letting me down. Especially since I was really paying attention to it and I was feeling really confident!

I’m disappointed that no matter how hard I work and do things right and train properly, I end up with injuries.

Since 2008, I’ve had 4 injuries that forced me to stop running for an extended period of time. 4!!

And now, I need to really think about what my running future is.

It feels like I’m always in the “rebuilding” phase.

Maybe it’s time for me to be done running the long distances. Maybe 8 marathons is enough?

Maybe it’s time for me to be done getting up at 4:30 on a Saturday morning to get out on the road for a 20-miler?

Oh, but the sunrises! And the birds! And the quiet! And the peace!

Maybe it’s time for me to just run whenever I feel like it (if I still can) for the sheer joy of it, rather than for training purposes with specific mileage and paces required.

Maybe it’s time for me to focus more on CrossFit. Maybe that’s what’s next in my fitness life.

I don’t know.

I definitely have some time to think about it and really evaluate what I want to do.

I’m trying to stay focused on the positives – it’s just an injury, I’ll recover, I’m still healthy, I can still workout, the boot is black and goes with everything……

But, that’s not always the easiest thing to do. I’ve been guilty of some “woe is me” moments over the past week. There were plenty of times I felt like curling up in a ball and crying at the unfairness of it all. And, I’ve been a little grouchy.  I’ve kicked myself in the ankle like 4 times since I got this dumb boot. *sigh*

Again, trying to focus on the positives. Like, at least this didn’t happen.

But, I’m a runner. Straight down to my core.

It’s my me time – it’s what I do – it’s what makes me happy.

Who am I if I don’t run?

 Talk to me: Anybody else dealing with injuries right now? How are you coping? Are you completely unable to workout or just limited?

– jennifer

50k training update – the good, the bad, and the ugly

Hi there!

You’re probably wondering why I’m giving you a random midweek update on my 50k training.

You might even be wondering what happened to Tasty Tuesday and Wine Wednesday this week.

Well, I’ll tell ya.

Monday started off bright and early at the track.

the good

I  had 800s on my schedule – 6 of them at 3:34 pace to be exact – and I was ready to go.

I loosened up per my norm and jogged a mile for warm up.

Then, I got started.

About 600-650m into the first 800, my right foot started to hurt.

Like OW.

I finished out my 800 and tried to walk it out.

Still OW.

Sat down, took my shoe off, massaged my foot a little.

More OW.

The top of my foot hurt and when I massaged, it didn’t feel good.

Put my shoe back on and tried to walk it out some more.

OW.

It hurt when I flexed my foot or during the “push off” part of walking.

Can’t run if it hurts to do that.

It was still really early – I didn’t have to be at work for about 2 hours still- so I went inside and hopped on a spin bike.

It didn’t hurt my foot. 🙂

the bad (it’s not running)

But, it wasn’t satisfying.

I hobbled into the locker room and started to get ready to head to work.

Yes, hobbled.

After my shower, I noticed that the top of my right foot just above my 2nd and 3rd toe was starting to swell.

And might have a little discoloration going on.

Is that a bruise?!

the ugly. Hey, I warned you!

That’s not good.

Localized pain, swelling, possible bruising, feels better when I’m not using it and worse when I am – my immediate thought was stress fracture.

Great.

I got to work and immediately called my doctor’s office.

By some miracle, she had an opening in just a couple of hours and I took it.

She sent me for x-rays and put in a consult for orthopedics.

Um, can I just pause here and say that I had the x-rays done IMMEDIATELY AFTER MY APPOINTMENT and that they are digital images so I got to see them IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEY WERE TAKEN!!!

If you’re familiar with military medicine, you know it NEVER works that way if you’re using a military clinic/hospital.

It gets even better.

My x-rays were read by the radiologist THE SAME DAY and my doctor communicated the results with me THE SAME DAY!!!

The results?

Well, no visible fracture (I expected that. Stress fractures don’t show up on x-rays until the healing process has started.), I still have that heel spur (dammit!), and I have arthritis near my big toe (news to me!).

Of course, Monday was also scheduled to be a double and the WOD was running. #karma

I did go to CrossFit. I did not run.

We started with bench press and strict pull ups (10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) and I wanted to do those.

The worst part was walking back and forth between the bench press and the pull up rig.

Admittedly, I probably should have skipped it but …. I never said I was smart.

I haven’t been back though.

Emailed coach and let him know what was going on.

I just learned about an hour ago that Tricare approved my referral to orthopedics and the clinic should be calling me to schedule an appointment.

They have until noon tomorrow before I start calling and pushing the process along. 🙂

Oh, and my a/c went out at home.

The guy came out and fixed it on Tuesday. #bliss

Apparently, someone “harry homeownered” the capacitor and put in a smaller than required one. He said he’s surprised it didn’t blow the whole generator!

My first thought? The flux capacitor wasn’t working?!?!?

But, he changed it out and we’re not sweating anymore so life, on that front, is good.

As for my foot, though…… 😦

I’m not sure what this means for my 50k.

Or my future in running in general.

Maybe it’s a sign.

Hopefully I get into orthopedics soon and they do an MRI or a bone scan to see for sure if it’s a stress fracture.

The sooner I know, the sooner I can start the proper healing process.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m still hobbling around – I try to walk with my right foot as flat as possible – but the swelling has gone down some.

le sigh

Talk to me: Have you ever had a stress fracture in your foot?  Do you believe in signs? If you could travel back in time, would you? Where would you go?