Running away from it all

Sunday/Monday, that's the same thing right? I'm a little late for this week, but it's been an exciting and busy week so I feel I'm justified in my lateness. I am finally without ankle reinforcements--yay!!--which means I'm back to actual work outs. My ankle is still sore when I move it in certain directions so the physio continues for the time being, but I'm just so excited that I'm finally footlose and fance-free in my shoes. Sorry, bad pun. The healing came at a good time as the brace was starting to wear on the back of my heal creating quite the sore spot by the end of the day.

I got hit by the flu bug that's going around work which has had me up and down this past week, but it seems to be completely gone now--another yay!!--so I'm really back in full force which means I'm finally able to start my 'learning to run' program I downloaded from the web. Yes, I said downloaded from the web. It''s one of those 'walk 5 minutes, run 1' type deals. I planned to start it last week but again the flu kept my activity pretty low. I have programmed the timing into my cellphone timer but what I really need is a timer in my mp3 player. Or I need to stop being cheap and upgrade to a phone that plays mp3s so the timer and tunes can co-habitate in one device.

I've never been a huge runing fan--even when I was a soccer player, I hated running--but I've been dabbling in it lately and have decided it's time to give this relationship a chance, see if we have a future together. The motivating factor for this decision was a discussion with a friend about destination marathons. Well, it was two different conversations with three different friends. With L & T, we discussed locations that they were thinking of going to (Italy, France, South Africa and Tanzania) and I jokingly offered to come as their support team. A few days later, in a conversation with another T, the words 'Antartica', 'marathon' and '2013' were floated around. I have tentatively (and I stress the tentatively) agreed to this plan, but first I need to become a runner. I'll give myself a year and if I don't love running by the end of that year, well, I'll be a lifer for the walking category in the TC 10K. If, however, I do love it I may just have to buy one of the jogging strollers when I have children (but I promise to hide it from those that hate them, you know who you are... and so do I).

I've finally woken up after Thanksgiving Dinner

I'll start this week with some good news: my ankle is getting much better! The physio that I'm doing really seems to be making things better. I'm sure part of it is also time and natural healing but the healing process seems to have taken a significant leap after I started the daily exercises, so I'm singing the praises of physio. Amen! Not to say there isn't still tenderness and certain movements remind me that I'm not healed, but I'm back to walking to and from work. Another Amen! I know that Autumn is here, today's rain proves it, but I'm hoping for at least a few more nice weekends as I have a double date with East Sooke Park and a couple of friends.

The other upside is that I'll be back at the gym lickity-split. I’ve checked out the facilities up at Camosun in a little more detail. They’re good facilities with a lot of newer equipment and usually fairly empty, however, the opening hours are somewhat limited so I’m going to have to plan my time there well. I see a few long days of work-gym-class, but the end result will definitely be worth it.

I’ve been busy with my classes and work so I haven’t had the chance to randomly search the web for random information which may (usually not) be useful in helping me attain my goal. As a result, I’ve set aside some time this weekend specifically for that purpose. Hopefully, I’ll find some good gems to share with you. I’ve found a few sites I’ve bookmarked for further investigation so here’s hoping I find something entertaining!

And now for some not-so-good news which has nothing to do with my blog’s purpose, but it’s my blog so tough diddly, I’ll write what I want. The younger brother of a good friend of mine is off to Afghanistan to serve our country. I think of my little brother and how I would feel if he was to head off overseas to put his life on the line for our country; I can only imagine that dark shadow which will hide in the back of the entire family’s mind until he’s home safe and sound. I have always been quite vocal to anyone who will listen that I may not support the mission involved, but I will always support the soldiers. Men and women who do a job I’m too selfish (and jumpy) to even contemplate deserve nothing less than my support. Every year I see the ‘Operation Santa Claus’ ads, and every year I think ‘this year I will participate’, and every year the holiday season passes without me doing anything. Well, this year I’ve already taken steps to ensure I don’t let that happen again. If you are interested in letting the troops know that people back home other than their families are thinking about them, please have a look at Write to the Troops which allows you to either post an electronic message or send an actual postcard/letter to a random soldier (you can pick the operation you want to write to). With the holiday season fast approaching, please consider taking 10 minutes and doing this.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and come out of your turkcoma’s before Christmas!

October? Already?

My ankle is still giving me lots of problems so the activity is still at a minimal level. It's frustrating to say the least. A week or two would have been tolerable, but three weeks is starting to wear on me. It's also starting to wear on my body. My rain jacket is starting to feel a little snug around the hips. When I first bought it, I chose it because it has two zippers and at that time even the largest size didn't fit over my hips. The fact that I can still do it up keeps the progress I've made in perspective, but it's not as loose as it was a month ago. Having said all that, I know have a set of daily ankle exercises to do so here's keeping the fingers crossed that I'll be back to proper workouts soon.


Prior to the ankle issues I was going to do the CIBC Run for the Cure today. Obviously, I didn't do that but I just wanted to give a big 'high 5' to everyone who did. You guys are awesome.

Good news, but no hammer!

I went to my doctor on Monday, and as I had thought given that I was walking, I have only sprained my ankle. A few things I learned which I didn't know before: a) a sprain can take up to 16 weeks to heal (and a really bad sprain can take up to a year to completely heal) and b) a break is actually easier to fix. Lesson learned; next time I sprain my ankle, I'll take a hammer to it when I get home. I've got an ankle brace to help with the healing and I wear it for any longer distances, but it gets hot and sweaty the longer it's on so I take it off a lot. Still, I have to admit it does feel better when it's on. I'm still lying low this week but it is feeling better. I found a walking workout plan and with a few modifications, it should be weak ankle friendly (something tells me that a shuffle step or a crossover might be asking for a re-injury).

I also found an online weight-loss simulator. I decided to have a go at it and this was the end result:


It was actually a lot of fun, you got to change the body to fit your height, start and (desired) end weight, fiddle with hair and facial features, as well as pick a bathing suit and a background (I was tempted to go with the snowy country lane because it made me giggle). If you want to have some fun with it yourself: http://www.prevention.com/mvm/main.html

My first big hurdle

So, it's been 11 days and my right ankle is still a) sore and b) slightly swollen. Standing on my tiptoes exasperates the pain, and if I walk too much, the pain moves up my leg to my right knee, ending in a dull ache which lasts for a good hour or so once I'm sitting. As you can imagine, this has limited my physical activity this week to pretty much, well, nothing. Except for walking to and from work (and a tribute band concert last night), I've halted all activity. The upside is that I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I'm hoping that she'll just tell me a bit more rest and every thing will be right as rain. The downside is that between work/school and trying to avoid standing for long periods of time so I never got my shopping done, my diet has suffered this past week as well. Oh well, this next week is the week to get back on track.

Because of my schedule, there's no point keeping my membership at the Y. Best case scenario, I'd be able to go there on the weekends only and as I like to try and hike on the weekends, I'm pretty much just throwing money away. Cancelling my membership is on this week's to-do list. I did pop my head in to check out the facilities up at Camosun. They look decent enough, and not very busy when I was in there, so they will be my new workout location once I'm up and on my foot again.

And that's about it. There's really not much to write in a blog about getting in shape when one is a hobble away from being laid up on the couch! If I get up on my feet before this week's end, I'll let you know. Otherwise, I'm in Vancouver next weekend (Maria and Jose are here!!!!) so I may not get around to posting.

I just keep rolling along...

...or at least, my ankle does. More on that later.

First week back to school has been fabulous. I had forgotten how much I love learning; sitting in the classroom listening to the professors, engaging your fellow students in debates related to your class, opening up that new notebook and scratching the first sentence across it. I'm in love with my classes and all of my teachers are showing to be great fun.

After an incredibly wet weekend last week which saw my grand plans of a walk out to GreekFest turn into a walk into town for coffee and then a wander about, I was really looking forward to tackling Gowlland Tod again, skipping McKenzie Bight so I actually make it to the top this time (damn you, Cascade!). After an early release from my first class on Wednesday, I was really looking forward to taking my 50 minutes, booting it down to Hillside Mall for a Timmy's coffee and then booting it back for my 6:00pm class. These two ideas may seem mutually exclusive, but they're not.

See, on my way down to Hillside I was letting my thoughts wander when my feet did the same thing and took a misstep which sent me ass-over-tit, as they say, with such force that I didn't think I would get up. There was such a definitive movement in my right ankle, I had a moment of panic, sure I had broken something. My first thought in these situations is usually some lame 'learn to walk twinkletoes', but instead I immediately thought that I would have to call the paramedics. How lame would I feel calling them for a non-life-threatening injury when they're on strike? Amazingly, after some kind people stopped to make sure I was alright, I got up and hobbled my way through the rest of my day.

My ankle is still quite swollen and sore today, but I'm able to get around on it well enough though the thought of having to run for my bus sent a chill down my spine (thankfully, it was not my bus lumbering up Fort St.). I keep expecting it to give way under me at any moment especially when I'm standing at the top of stairs I need to go down. I see it flash in my mind: my ankle gives as I put weight on it and down I go to the bottom, landing in some jumbled mess like a pile of laundry. Luckily my ankle is much kinder to me than my imagination, and it has yet to show any such signs of weakness when I put weight on it.

Tomorrow, I will purchase one of those ankle-tensor-support-thingys. You know, those elastic-y ones that racket sport players seem to favour. I'm hoping that it will give me, if nothing else, the mental belief that my ankle is better so I can stop having some sort of mini-mental freak out at the top of every staircase. And I'm hoping that it will give me enough confidence to Gowlland-Tod this weekend. I'm going to get to the top of that mountain if it kills me...

...or maybe just forever ruins my ankle.

Pondering Rhetorical Questions

I have written and rewritten this blog many times since I started composing it on Saturday afternoon, written both on my laptop and in my head. I don’t know why this week is so difficult, usually I sit down, start writing and when I’m done, I hit publish. I found this week to bring up lots of ideas and thoughts, examples from my own life on both sides of the issues; questions I couldn’t answer in the space of a blog.

I spent much of the last week asking myself the question: why do we feel the need to hack down people who are going after their dreams? I had kept my return to school fairly quite at work as I was still going to be working part time so I didn’t need a big hullabaloo about it. Inevitably the news leaked and the response from one of my co-workers was less than kind on three separate occasions; it got me to thinking about the question above.

I am not friends with this particular co-worker, I think that’s pretty plain, but we were cordial and I often defended this co-worker against a few who have set their minds to hating this co-worker come hell or high water, and I get repaid with a snarky comment about how long it’s been that this co-worker has heard me talking about returning to school it’s about time that I finally did it. If I had known that this was not the last such comment, I don’t know if I would have laughed it off so easily. After a conversation with another friend on Friday night about support, I really got to thinking about how we begrudge people their happiness. What is it about other people, sometimes even friends, achieving their dreams or going after their goals which brings out the worst in us all?

I spent much of my rewriting trying to answer this question, or at least pose a possible answer with some pithy statement but it never comes out sounding plausible. So I’m left with my unanswerable question to continue pondering on my own.