Week 5: The Last Comeback

Better late than never. I’m trying to get a hold on the blogging consistency. I’m managing 2 blogposts a week, one weekly wrap up and another mixed bag of things- tips, throwbacks, running psychology, family, etc..... once school is officially out I think I’ll get into a better rhythm... or not... but I’m determined to just keep blogging even if I’m late. So it’s Tuesday morning, I have a prep period I don’t need because I’ve been prepping so far in advance I’m able to relax (for once). The printer here is also out of ink so I'm trading the prepping I normally do at school and doing it at home... so the things I normally do at home (blog, for example) I'm trying to squeeze in during my prep at school. Everyone else is cleaning their class and organizing during their preps, but I’ll be here all summer so I’m not that concerned! In the meantime, here’s another week of training... I ran!

Monday: Spin Class
Matts back from Switzerland but he’s doing some crazy amount of pre-sales for new products and so he’s got a cray schedule with long hours. Monday he had the girls with him, so I went to spin class and killed myself there. I understand that the spin bikes probably measure miles based on revolutions not on power, but I “rode” 24 miles in an hour... my watts were just under 170. I actually had a lot of fun, but no a lot of time to do anything else.

 Tuesday: RUN! and bike.
I did 10 minute walk, 5x1:00 walk/run at 11:00/pace, 10 min cool down walk. Almost 2 miles. WOO! My right foot hurt a little more than my left foot. I took this as a good thing because maybe it means I'm not compensating so much....? and then my right hip was a bit sore after spin... but again in a pretty good way. My orthotics still have not come in so I'm just itching to start breaking them in and getting moving again! I wasn't overly enthusiastic about running again. It always feels a little wrong when you start again. Kind of like a baby deer learning to walk. It seems like it should just come so naturally if everything is healed, but that's just not how the body works. Those early phases post injury are a delicate balance between what you are actually feeling and what  you are perceiving you are feeling based off of fear or history. When you are only running one minute at a time there's not a lot of risk involved. My PT gave me a return to run program that I'm sort of following with some minor changes from my podiatrist. The return to run program that my PT has me doing is an hour on your feet (most of which is walking) but my podiatrist wants even less... at least until I get the orthotics.  I'm still waiting for some clarification on how to increase next.... but if I don't get an email back soon I'm going to go rogue and that's probably not a good thing! After the run I biked easy for 30 minutes and then I finished up with some single leg box squats, step ups, glute band stuff, and some pelvic floor breathing. I'm really trying to get the pelvic floor stuff back under control. I know, I know, it seems like I should be done with all this postpartum stuff, but the reality is once postpartum, always postpartum and I've learned that the hard way this year. 
​

Wednesday: Happy Global Running Day! 
I did pool running. I did a quick ladder workout similar to what I posted in my Water Running 101 post, but I shortened it to only 2 ladders instead of 3 since I was pressed for time before a class came in. I did a lot of reflection on the running experiences I've had. How many hours I've probably spent in the pool injured, how many I've spent as supplemental work, how many hours I've spent devoting to this sport in general. It's a lot. I used to think I lacked discipline, but really I don't... Motivation and dedication aren't the same thing. I'm often overworking myself so motivation is thin. But I'm learning to balance it better with age, so I'll get it right one day! 

Thursday: Walk/Run 30 minutes
Today was another day where I had to drive all the way home to get the girls and all the way back to the gym to get the use of kids korner. I think soon I can take them outside in the stroller, but Raea chose the gym so that worked for me. She had her FIRST EVER field trip so I think she was tired of being outside. It actually worked even better than I could imagine! A co-worker of mine was having a retirement party. I knew what day it was because I remember checking and thinking oh, I can't go, Matt isn't home. But I didn't realize that the location was actually at the bar IN MY GYM. So I showed up with my kids not even aware all my coworkers were there. I worked out and then went to socialize a bit. I fed my kids some of the food and it worked out great because one less thing to clean up. I had a ton on my plate that night because I promised my students I'd make us T-shirts for Spree Day. I had not started yet and I got home at 8:00... It was a fun night. I finished at 12:30 which wasn't actually too bad considering all I squeezed in on a Thursday. 30 minutes of walk/running wasn't much, but it was something, and pretty much no noticeable hip or foot pain.

Friday: Off
Spree Day! I spent the whole day on my feet at work and outside. The kids at school had a TON of fun and were really well behaved. I spent the whole week talking about waiting in lines and choosing to wait only for your most favorite things. I had them write about their favorite things and took note of their top 3 so that none of them missed out on what they wanted to do the most. Bouncy Houses, Slides, Horses, face painting, tattoos, colored hair, cotton candy, snow cones, dunk tank, and more relay and field games than you can ever imagine (and this is coming from someone who has spent 12 hours at a track event specifically for relays). Anyway, Spree day was enough activity for me. Just as I was leaving school I checked my voicemail and my Orthotics were in. I picked them up so I could spend the weekend breaking them in and by Tuesday I'd be in them for a full work day. When I got home I just wanted to spend time with my kids and then I did a Date Night In with my husband. 

Saturday: 
Crazy Saturday. The usual. My husband is off to work early everyday and home late during his big sales season, so even though I do see him each day I'm basically parenting solo. I took Raea to dance with Maebel. After dance I took the kids to Kids Korner at the gym. I did about 40  minutes of walk running but mostly walking. It felt weird since I was in my orthotics for 2 hours before and then had to take them off to workout. I'm still adjusting. I didn't do much more. Just foam rolling and practicing Pelvic Floor breathing. Afterward I had  a few errands to run. I needed to get the car inspected because it was a few days overdue, we all needed to eat, and I had to get a gift for my friends bridal shower the next day. I thought I was being super efficient when I pulled into the autoshop right next to panera, right in front of Home Depot. This is great. I'll drop off my car, get an oil changed and an inspection, walk over to panera and eat while it's getting done and then walk up to home depot. The kids wont even need to wait!.... 

Well, it didn't go that way. As it turns out my registration was expired a few days ago, too.... and it's technically my husbands car because I sold mine and he drives the company car... and my husband was in a giant tent sale.... so the only way I can get my car inspected is to re-register the car online... but I need all his info, and then I need to somehow do it on my phone while my kids run around like crazy, going behind the desk, licking the windows and screaming at the top of their lungs because I'm raising a bunch of animals and it was Maebels nap time. I was super stressed about this but thank the LORD another little girl came in with her toy puppy and my kids settled long enough to let me finish what I was doing. Then we needed to wait for the registration email to come in and it just wasn't coming... and now I"m freaking out like I need to wait until business hours or something... and I'm 90% sure the carshop isn't going to let me drive away with an unregistered car, so... W.T.F... I walk over to panera with the impatient girls (and I'm starving BTW because my kids decided not to be an alarm clock today and we were running really late for dance so I skipped breakfast) and the second I step through the door I get the email I was waiting for. We eat, then walk back to the car place.. wait some more... give the proof they need and the registration number, walk to Home Depot and grab a gift card and then I just pushed them in the cart for literally no other reason but to keep them contained until the shop called me and said the car was ready. Dear Lord please pass inspection. We go to get the car and all was good. Great customer service and way more patience with my kids than I had... although I do admit the food gave me the patience I needed! The car passed, I wasn't really worried until I was having one of those days and thought that would be the icing on the cake... but instead the icing was ice cream! right as we were about to leave, the ice cream truck pulled up and I just happened to have cash from all my students parents giving me some money for their spree day shirts. The wait was worth it, Raea never saw an ice cream truck before. She was excited and wants to go back to the car place... ​Next time this year I will. Someone remind me. 

Sunday: Another day of no working out and I'm not sad about it. I had a bridal shower to go to and then I spent the rest of the afternoon prepping for next fall. Did I mention I signed up for a marathon? It's a last chance BQ, Erie Marathon, and I'm basically going to be doing peak week when we go back to school and racing right around the time everything starts to really take off. Needless to say, it's going to be a stressful month to run a marathon, so I figure if I can get everything organized for next year it will help remove some of that initial start of the school year stress. This year was really stressful because I had a mostly new batch of kids. This coming year I will have most of the same students, so it gives me a little bit of a better opportunity to prepare. I enjoyed the rest of the night hanging out with these cool kids!