*december 6th*

(Credit to my hubby for today's picture.)

Evidence that it is officially winter and 14 degrees outside (with 4 degree wind chill) tonight - a frozen sol patch from running...



My first ever broken bone

Yep, that's right.

I made a visit to the podiatrist yesterday.  He decided I needed an xray since it hurt when he pushed on my metatarsal (bone).  He said the area I was having pain was a common area for stress fractures.

Well, he was right!  I have a stress fracture on my 3rd metatarsal.  (This is my first ever broken bone!)  It's been 3 and a half weeks since I had the bad experience running where I could hardly walk at the end of it.  So my pain and swelling has gone down tremendously.  It was interesting that he said a stress fracture won't show up until about 2 or 3 weeks after it happens.  That's why mine showed up on the xray.  It was a cloud in one picture and there was a tiny little line in the other.  He said the cloud is like the body's "cast".  I thought that was kind of cool to know that our body can do amazing things like protecting itself so that it can heal an injury.

So he gave me a couple options as far as what to wear on my foot from now until it fully heals.  I chose to have this insert put in my shoe.

It will take the pressure off of the fracture when my foot rolls forward while I'm walking.  He said that I should try to minimize the amount of walking I do barefoot.  Since I work from home, I think I'll wear this around while I'm at home.

This is Kaitlyn's boot that I'm borrowing from her.  She just had a stress fracture of her own over the summer!  So I figure I may as well take advantage of the fact that I have one to borrow.

My stress fracture was due to running.  I was looking online and it said that one of the causes is overpronation, which I know I have a problem with.  When I buy some running shoes when I'm ready to run again, I'll have to make sure I get some shoes made for people who overpronate.  Let's just hope this doesn't happen again.

Here's to at least another few weeks of taking it easy on my foot.  I have to also add that my doctor husband was exactly right.  He said when I first hurt it that it was probably a stress fracture.  Hence yet another reason my hubby should've become a doctor (and the fact that he has a little experience with broken bones in his feet!).

As a side note, I must say that seeing the xray of my foot today was pretty cool.  That's the only xray I've ever had besides on my teeth at the dentist.  I wish I would've taken a picture of it just to remember this milestone in my life.  I guess that's why I have this post :)

Might be a while

Well, I did it. I strapped on my running shoes this morning.

And it felt great.

My body was feeling great to be running again.

But my foot didn't agree so much.

I wasn't even gone from the house 10 minutes (and much of that time was spent walking). After having essentially 3 weeks of rest (relatively), my foot is still not back to normal. 

I don't know what's up. I guess it's good that I have an appointment with the podiatrist next Tuesday.

So it might still be a while before this chick is back to running.

Scrapbook Sunday XV

I've definitely been slacking lately on my scrapbooking posts.  I haven't had a lot of spare time with the fashion show and everything.  So here is a sort of update on the pages that I have done.

Here's another one from my family's Disney World trip to Florida.  I loved using my white pen around the outside of my pictures to make them stand out a bit.  I put some journaling along the right side (in the white stripe), but you can't really read it.  I also love the "memories" epoxy sticker :)

This year I've been trying to do a 2-page spread as a summary for each month.  So here are the pages for February...yes, it's May and I'm just now doing February!  That's probably why these pages are so simple :)

I wanted to try out a new technique that I read about recently.  It involves a way to save paper if you print something from your computer onto cardstock.  So I decided to try it out!  I did a test print on the right side of the page (regular computer paper), used the same piece of paper to attach my cardstock to the other side of the page, and then printed my text a 2nd time.

I have to say it worked pretty well!  And I loved the fact that I didn't need to send a whole piece of cardstock through the printer - I only needed to cut a piece as large as the area for the text. 

I love the way it looks on my layout.  It would've taken me years to write this much down (and I don't think I can write that tiny).  I was also able to copy and paste this text from a previous blog post.

This layout is for the 2009 Indy Mini :)

Two Great Weekends

The past two weekends have been great ones for us - two big events in two weekends!

Two weekends ago was the Indianapolis Mini Marathon.  This year Chris and I were both running in it!  Some people may ask, 'Did you run together?' And I would say definitely not!

I'll have to write down my thoughts from the race and also get Chris to write down his sometime soon.  But for now here are many of the pictures that were taken that day with a few comments.

Chris and I before the race.  We were in downtown Indy by 6am!  It was definitely an early morning getting up at 4:15am.

Chris stretching before the race.  We waited in the White River State Park parking garage since it was cold and windy outside.  The parking garage was definitely much warmer.  Since the 5k race started before the mini this year, Chris and I couldn't get in our corrals until after that race began.  I was thankful for this because everyone behind us (in corrals E thru Z) had to be in their spot by 7am.  Chris was in A and was in C this year.

Me stretching

Chris and his dad look so much alike...Thanks to Chris' parents who took us to and from the race!  It was great to have them there with us to cheer us on and take some pics.

Start line

The first "where's waldo?"...can you find Chris?

The wheelchairs getting ready to start the mini.

At the start line...here are the kenyans, who normally win the race.  I believe the guy in orange got 2nd place.

Me anxiously waiting for the race to start.  I took my long sleeve shirt off way too early!

The pace car in the last mile homestretch.

The leaders of the race!

Here comes Chris down the homestretch (with about 1/2 mile to go)!

He's running fast (about 5:20 pace or faster)!

I believe the other runner in this picture was the first Indiana female to finish the race.  Yes, my husband is that fast!

There I am coming down the homestretch!

The second "where's waldo?"...can you find me?

I'm pooped, but I can still walk at this point!  (I could hardly walk later in the day since my calf, which had been hurting all week before the race, and shin were really sore and hurting.)  I've got my gatorade and bag of food in hand. 

It was great to see everybody at this point because I was excited about my finishing time!

These were the closest pictures to getting one together after the race.  We forgot to get one before we left!

It was such a great day and race!  It was pretty cold and very windy.  The temperature was good though once we were running.

Chris did awesome and finished in 1:15.13, beating his goal time by about 3 minutes.  And I finished in 1:44.09, beating last year's time by over a minute.

03.09.10

Since we didn't find Chris any running shoes in the store, he decided to order them from Road Runner.  They came so fast (like 3 days)!  Chris is currently wearing Asics Nimbus'.

Road Runner is great if you know what kind of running shoes you like (and what size).  They have a deal where you can signup to be a VIP member for a few dollars but then you get free shipping and 10% off.  It's kind of a no-brainer!

03.06.10

Chris and I went shopping today in search of new running shoes for both of us.  We were successful in finding me both new shoes and running shorts.  (Yes, these shoes are purple :) And they are Asics Gel-Kayano's.) Chris had no luck finding shoes in the store.

02.20.10

Chris and I had a great time in Indianapolis today.  He ran in the 2010 Polar Bear 5-mile Race.  He did good - he placed 3rd in his age group and 8th overall!  It was easy to spot him since he was wearing his orange shirt.

We also got to watch Kaitlyn compete in the Circle of Stars gymnastics competition in the afternoon.  She was able to compete in all of her events even though she had broken her thumb 5 weeks earlier and had only been released for a week!  It was fun watching her since we don't get to do it much.

02.13.10

The trees were frosty again this morning because it was so cold (0 degrees)!  I'm glad I decided to take an upclose picture of the branches today because they look like that "rock candy" you can get on a stick.

Yes, I still went on my long run this morning.  It was cold.  I'm just glad there wasn't much wind.  I set out to run 9 miles, but found out that I ran more like 9.5 or closer to 10!  I can't believe I'm already up at this mileage again.  It seems like my training time is going faster this year.

02.05.10

This week I decided to do my long run on Friday instead of Saturday like I normally do.  I did this because I didn't want to run 8 miles in several inches of snow tomorrow.  I thought I could pick a time this morning when there wouldn't be much traffic and there would be minimal snow.

I was kind of right about the minimal snow part, but the roads were still kind of slick because it had started snowing and spitting iceballs.  And I was completely wrong about the traffic.  There was much more than I expected.  There were a few times I had to stop running and wait momentarily off in the grass.  Let's just say I was thankful for the times I was running on sidewalks (most of the time) and thankful when I finally reached home after 70 minutes.

02.03.10

The remaining training time I have for the Indianapolis Mini is nearing 3 months.  Today I made sure to map out the rest of my long runs and what mileages they need to be.  Last year the most I ran before the race was a 2-hour run, which was somewhere around 13 miles.  This year I'm shooting for a long run up to 15 miles before the race.  I'm hoping this will give me more "umpf" at the end of the race.  Last year the finish line could not come soon enough - the last couple of miles were pretty hard.

May 8th will be here before I know it!  I can't believe I only have 3 months left to train!

01.07.10

Can you tell which ankle I hurt yesterday?

I'm taking today off from running to rest my ankle and because there are several inches of fresh snow on the ground today. A less than stellar ankle and a fair amount of snow do not mix well.

Tracks

01.06.10

One part I love about the snow is noticing the animal tracks that can be seen all over our neighborhood. Bunny tracks (such a good ice cream!) are very numerous. The snow also gives me a clue into what Maggie is always sniffing in the grass when there's no snow!

Along a different line...I needed to be more careful where I placed my "tracks" today while running (even though I thought I was being careful with all of the snow and ice still out there). I stepped on a pile of leaves covered by snow and tweaked my ankle a bit. I was mad when I did that because I was having such a good run and it was warmer today too - it got into the 20's. (It felt so good not to have my face freezing off!) I was over a mile from home at the time. I walked for a bit, then decided it felt ok enough to run the rest of the way home. It's not bad at all, but it still popped when I stepped wrong and swelled up a bit later. Not the first time I've hurt my ankle running. (The other time I twisted it while there wasn't any snow and messed it up more than this time!) I'm hoping it will feel ok tomorrow or Friday.

Now it's time to get ready for the 3 to 6 inches of snow we're supposed to get tomorrow. It could be our first big snow for the year!

...Hello December

I thought it appropriate to post something involving Christmas on the first day of December. This is one of Chris' ornaments on our tree that he received because of his love for running. Yesterday Chris got the tree down and setup it up, and then I picked out the ornaments and put them on the tree. I've also got most of the Christmas decor up inside the house (although I think I'll make a few things to put around the house) and we even put up some lights outside this year! (Thanks honey for doing the lights outside.) I'm sure there will be more Christmas pics this month.

So recently I realized that I forgot to post some news that involves running. So it's appropriate that I post about it now, given the picture I posted...Chris and I have signed up for next year's Indianapolis Mini Marathon! This was the race that I ran in this past May for the first time. Chris started running again seriously this past summer and he decided next year he wants to run a mini marathon and, I believe, also a full marathon. I told him I would run the mini again, but I'm still not sure about the entire 26.2 miles. Part of me wants to do it because next year would be a good time in my life to run it and then my brain kicks in and says, "you seriously want to run 26 miles?" So I think I'll wait until the spring to make my decision about the full marathon and see how things are going with training to improve my mini time from this year.