News and Updates

Timeline Back from Injury + First Workout

We settled in Crown Point with Glenn’s family on Sunday for a 5 day stretch. We had our nieces 1st birthday party on Sunday and we were planning to come on Wednesday anyway for Christmas time with his family, so we just decided to stay the week. It was a busy weekend though. I’m not one for trying to be busy, but it ended up that way.

Saturday morning, I had the Donut 5K- where I repped for Athletic Annex for a couple of hours.

After the race, I got my hair cut & the magenta is a little louder this time. My girl Britney is the best. When I first tried out the splash of magenta, I didn’t know if I could pull it off. I was kind of nervous to ask Britney what she thought about doing it at first but she was all about it.

She is the one who gave Marshall that super cute hipster cut. Now that Glenn is growing his hair out a little more than the usual buzz cut I give him, he might have to see her for a visit. I can do the upkeep, but she might have to get him started.

Then Marshall and I headed to Louisville for one of my best friends sons birthdays. We got home from that at 10pm- he slept the whole car ride but of course woke up as soon as we got home and made me drive around and look at blow up balloons.

Sunday morning, we woke up and got to packing for Crown Point. Whew, that’s a long time to be away from home settled in someone else’s house. We are staying here though Christmas Eve and then heading back to Indy to spend Christmas morning at home in our house. We’ll head down to Bloomington to be with my family on Christmas day.

This is the first year that Marshall is truly excited about Christmas so it’s more fun. I have honestly struggled a lot with how to do Christmas with him. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, but I struggle a little bit with the whole Santa thing. I just want to make sure from a young age they understand why we are actually celebrating Christmas and don’t get caught up in the “I want all the stuff” concept. I know I’m not alone here.

I mentioned to Glenn – what do you think about Santa? Should we tell him from the get go that Santa is pretend, but it’s fun to pretend? Glenn told me I was crazy though and that I should calm down and just have fun. This is a whole other post for another day and I could write a lot on my feelings on the issue, but for now, we are rolling with santa but not making it a huge deal.

In my running world- Glenn wrote a loose plan for me to follow for these next six weeks. I have already edited it a few times and changed a few things around, but following the basic outline.

Yesterday I did my first “speed” workout. I ran for 40 minutes total and after a 12 minute warm up. (Basically when I felt ready and that’s how long it took) I don’t like to give myself a specific distance or time to warm up because sometimes it takes me 10 minutes, sometimes it takes me 25 minutes. Yesterday it took 12.

I ran 1 minute at 9.0 on the treadmill (6:40 pace- felt like 6:20), and then took 1.5 min easy at 6.8, (8:55 Pace), I even got a little crazy and ran the last one minute at 9.5 (6:20) and extended it to 2 whole mintues. It was hard.

Looking back to where I was back in August, ahhhhhhh. I’m a solid 5 lbs up, my endurance isn’t stellar and the leg speed is hard to find. BUT. Let’s take a look back at the last few months. Since the grim day when I tore my plantar fascia.

Here’s the Rough Timeline of Events:

Tuesday September 1st – Tore my Plantar Fascia.

4 weeks – In a boot

6 weeks – First PT appointment
- start strength work on foot

8 weeks – Second PT appointment
- cleared to run

9 weeks – 2 Min run, 3 Min Walk- 25 Minutes
- Took 5 days off after doing this a couple times because I was nervous my foot wasn’t ready
- Went to Foot doc- he assured me foot was healed, it was just the scar tissue that felt weird.
- Prescribed Orthotics
  - A litte note on orthotics. I wore orthotics for 15 years. Got plantar fasciitis wearing orthotics TWICE over the past three years. Recovered from it both times after becoming pregnant and significantly decreasing my miles. (the second time I got it I took 6 weeks off running during the beginning of my pregnancy with Louis)
  - Stopped wearing orthotics May 2014 after hobbling my way to the finish line in Boston with so much PF pain.
  - Ran throughout my pregnancy with Louis with no orthotics and a mild stability shoe- both feel felt fine.
  - Plantar Fasciitis flared up sometime in June- I babied it, icing constantly, rolling my foot, did strength work. It wasn’t too bad, but I tried to listen to my body. Late August I had around 10 weeks to go in my training for the Monumental Marathon. I was feeling great and getting fit. The foot wasn’t effecting my runs, it was more the morning pain and aching throughout the day. The progression of my runs where shaping up to predict I would be in shape to run a sub 3:05 marathon (my goal) with 10 more weeks of hard work. I wanted that so bad and decided I would train through the PF and take a big break after the race. I’d done it before and been fine and it hurt way less this time than it did last time.
  - Tore the PF- and once back to running I decided I probably needed that foot support that my orthotic had provided. Ran my first post injury run with orthotics on Thanksgiving Day at the Drumstick Dash, 13 weeks out and haven’t ran without them since. Feels natural and good. That’s my orthotic story. Back to the timeline of events.

10 weeks – 3 Min run, 2 Min walk – 30 Min (3 days a week)

11 weeks – 4 Min Run, 1 Min Walk – 30 Min (3 days a week)

12 weeks – 30 Minute run beginning of week- 35 minute run end of week

13 weeks – Drumstick Dash – 39 Min Run
- First Run with Orthotics

HOLD HERE
- I felt like I had hit a ceiling for the time being. My foot was telling me I didn’t need to increase my run time yet. So I kept it at 40 minutes for my longest run for two more weeks.

14-16 weeks out – 40 Min long run (3-4 days of running/week)

17 weeks – 50 Min long run (3-4 days of running/week)

18 weeks – FIRST WORKOUT.

We are in Crown Point and this was done in my sister in law’s basement, while the kids (5 of them, our two and her three) ran/crawled around like nuts. I watched Donald Glover stand up on netflix and it was pretty funny. Not my most favorite stand up, but enough to have my laughing while I worked hard. I am obsessed with stand up comedy. It is my favorite thing to watch. Make me laugh and I will love you.

Then I had some cute partners to do some post run stretching and planks with. (That’s our niece Sofia) Marshall is having a blast with his cousins, but that’s not without plenty of fighting as well. Everyone wants the same toy at the same time of course.