Oops

**Update –  I hit the treadmill this afternoon for my 4-miler.  And by mile 2 I was feeling my ankle…and it wasn’t good.  I walked (fast) the last 1.3 miles.  To be honest with you, I’m nervous.  But I’m going to forgo my scheduled 3-mile runs on Tuesday and Thursday and just focus on R.I.C.E (rest, ice, compression, elevation) until Saturday.  I’m still planning on kicking my ankle’s ass if it misbehaves on Sunday, but I’ll cross that hurdle when I get to it. ***

So obviously I’m a liar.  I didn’t come back in a week.  It’s now 3 weeks later.

My ankle.  That’s what I said I’d give you an update about.  The ankle was much better, and then I attempted to run 8 miles last Saturday.   I made it 3 miles and I started to feel it hurt.  I decided that I was going to walk the next 2 miles and then run the last 3.  When I tried to run, it hurt.  A lot.  I walked 5 of that 8-mile “run.”  That afternoon we went to Reno and I bought new Nike running shoes.  I’m a Nike girl.  My feet like Nike.  Ever since then I’ve been icing my ankle and heel 2-3 times a day and taking ibuprofen at least once a day.  I ran 3 miles last Tuesday on the treadmill and then on Thursday I ran 4.  I have to say it felt much better, but I’m not trusting it 100%.  It still feels a little weird.  I’m not sure how else to describe it.

Over the last month I’ve modified my training schedule.  Especially if you compare it to April.  In the month of April I ran 90 miles.  And then on May 2nd I ran a half marathon.  No wonder I’m broken.  But including the half marathon I’ve *only* run 44 miles in May.  I have a scheduled 4-miler this weekend that I will do tomorrow.  Between now and the half marathon next Sunday (not including the 4-miler tomorrow) I have 8 miles to run between 3 days.  I’m planning on running all but 2 on the treadmill to help with the pounding on my ankle.

I can’t believe that in 6 days our Team Shrinking Jeans team will be together for the first time.  I’m sure there will be a plethora of pictures taken next weekend.  I promise to share.  I am so excited to run a race with a group.  So excited I can’t even tell you.  But I will do a post-race-weekend recap next week.

Thank you to all who have supported me in this endeavor.  No words could describe how thankful I am.

 

Weeks 12, 13, *and* 14

Wow. I can’t believe that it’s been almost 3 weeks since I last updated everyone here.  So much has happened.  In week 12, I know I did my runs almost as prescribed.  That Thursday I only did 5 miles instead of 6 due to time constraints of T’s birthday and picking up Tiffany and Jerrod at the airport.  That Friday morning Tiffany and I headed to the airport and were off to middle of nowhere Texas (aka Leakey – pronounced Lake-ee not Leak-ee for those of you who might have mispronounced it like I had been doing).  The majority of the girls who went for our little ‘girls weekend’ were part of Team Shrinking Jeans and so really early Saturday morning (well, early for us pacific coast timers) we got up and ran our prescribed miles.  I completed 12.  It was a bad run, in my mind, but I banked those 12 miles.  Tiffany and I flew back into Reno on Monday.  I left her at the airport to catch her flight back to Boise.

Week 13′s training I modified.  On May 2nd (last Sunday) I had signed up for a half-marathon in Reno.  The Rock N River (Half) Marathon.  I signed up for this because I know I can run 13.1. But I’m aiming for a below 2-hour time in San Diego.  I figured if I could run at elevation in Reno in less than 2:10 that I would fairly easily be able to run the same distance at sea level in less time.  I ran 5 miles on Wednesday and then 2 miles on Friday just to give my body time to rest before the 13.1.  Also I was starting to feel like something was off in my left ankle.  It felt like it wanted to pop but it wouldn’t.  I’m blaming it on running in a different brand of shoes than normal.  They are really pretty shoes, but I will be handing them off to one of my teammates who loves her identical pair.  The race was pretty good.  I took off slow.  I didn’t want to push my ankle too much in the beginning.  It took a mile or so of paying attention to it and making sure I was allowing it to warm up gently. Unfortunately for my brain, my headphones died on me.  At mile 1.  I was a might bit ticked.  Music is my big motivator in running.  Luckily there were enough other runners around me that their strides and banter helped keep my mind off of the lack of music.  Then I hit a good stride about mile 2.5 – at this point I was running 9:10 miles.  My cruising kept up until about mile 8.  I knew I was over halfway there.  But at mile 8 my ankle did something weird and started hurting.  My pace slowed down considerably at this point.  I started having internal debate of whether or not I should just call it a day and quit.  But I wasn’t mentally able to say I was done.  I *knew* I could run this distance.  I kept wondering if I was doing damage that would hurt attaining my goal in San Diego.  Long story short(er), I finished the race running.  I finished with a time of 2:07:38 – which I’m totally fine with.  I met my goal, and I know that once my ankle is back to 100% I will definitely hit my goal time in San Diego.

Week 14 – I’ve essentially taken this week off.  I wanted to let my ankle rest after the half.  I did get on the treadmill today and ran relatively slowly for 2 miles.  Once my ankle warmed up, the muscles and tendons felt fine, but my ankle still felt like it wanted to pop.  This afternoon I visited with my chiropractor.  He adjusted my hips and my ankle and then he did some laser therapy on it.  It feels so much better already.  I’m going to let it rest tomorrow and then hopefully go for a 6 mile run on Sunday.  If it’s not back to normal by Sunday I will head back to the chiropractor on Monday.  There are only 4 weeks left until San Diego.  Actually in 4 weeks we will *BE* in San Diego and I’m excited beyond belief.  I will be hanging with my sisters and enjoying being all together for the first time ever.

I promise I’ll be back in a week and let you know how the ankle is doing.