Road to Arizona 2017 – Monday Recap 6

Week started good and ended…not so good.

12/2/17 – Running – Speedwork

A warm up and then a set of run/walk intervals to work on speed.  It went well and, maybe even better, it wasn’t completely terrible.  Also, I think that the strength workouts are really helping – I was able to hold a faster maximum speed for an interval twice as long as last year.

Pilates

Core work and stretching

12/3/17 – Bike – Trainer Work

It’s been a while since we did cycling – I appear to have lost my ass callouses, it wasn’t that long of a workout and it was seriously uncomfortable!

Strength training

Still my favorite!

12/4/17 – Running – Speedwork

The intervals were faster and more consistent than on Monday and, again, not terrible.

12/5/17 – Strength

Squat Squat Squatty Squat Squat

Swim – Speedwork

Longer intervals, less rest in between.  This workout kicked my ass.  On the last lap I held my breath when my face was in the water instead of exhaling, so when I lifted my head to take my breath I exhaled, then put my face back in the water and inhaled.  Mmmm…delicious chlorinated water.

12/6/17 – Day Off

I tried archery!  It was awesome and I  wrote all about it here!

12/7/16 – Long Run

Background: My ankles are hypermobile.  My ankles’ response to uneven ground, lateral pressure, or really anything out of the ordinary is simply to try to fold in half and let me fall on my ass (or, more commonly, my knee) for what typically appears to be absolutely no reason.

So I fall down more than the average bear. Most of the time I can pop up, walk it off in a couple steps, and then keep going. Most of the time.

The workout:  I was doing walk run intervals and trying to really push on the run intervals.  I was running up a hill and driving hard and I got distracted by a taxi that was parked in the road that I was about to cross, I veered to the left and my foot ended up half on the sidewalk and half on the grass and it rolled, just as I was coming down with a ton of force. Since I was going up a hill, the ground came at me super fast. I fell onto my opposite knee (as is my custom) and my right forearm. As soon as it happened I knew it was not going to be walk-off=able.

I stayed on the ground for a moment collecting my thoughts.  I stood up and was able to put weight on it but it hurt pretty badly.  I knew that I either had to call Julianne to get me (which I knew she would be happy to do) or get home before the adrenaline wore off.  I wasn’t that far from home so I just limped there.  She grabbed my ice pack and I elevated the foot and took some Vitamin I (ibuprofen to the uninitiated) and that’s when the throbbing started.

After spending Sunday obsessively icing, elevating  and taking anti-inflammatories I went to the Physical Therapist first thing this morning.  She did tissue manipulation to try to clear the edema, ice, the electrocuty- thing, and taped it up. She also gave me a series of weight bearing exercises to do with my foot in a bucket of ice water. She thinks I’ll be ready to go by the end of the week.  Until then it’s all swimming, all the time.

This is super frustrating- I feel like every time I get a little bit of momentum something knocks me back down.  But the truth is that in a lot of ways I’m lucky – this is just a week’s setback and I see people in the forums all the time who are breaking bones, or have serious injuries that can end their journey.  I can make up for a week.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do exercises with my foot in a bucket of ice water.

Here are this week’s selfies:

Run!

Pilates

Biking on the training (painting in the back by Kelrick, my Best Friend)

Squatzilla

Run some more!

Strength!

Empty locker room = full body picture in the big mirror

Archery on my off day!

Ice ice baby!