I don’t even remember when the last weekend was that didn’t involve a lot of miles. It’s so much hard NOT to run than push to run long and hard. I wish I could have stayed resting in bed all the time, like Cookie did. Instead, I crossed trained every day and did strength training. I did cycling on Friday and Saturday (20, 40 min), and outdoor swimming on Sunday. Not too bad but definitely not the same as running. I enjoyed swimming more because it was outdoor, it was uncomfortable (cold) so I had to mentally “push”. Finger crossed those 3 days of non-running helped to heal the tendon inflammation.
I saw a physio on Friday, the doctor that examined my ankle and said it was not bad as he didn’t see any inflammation, visually, and didn’t provoke any pain when moving my ankle around. Then I had one hour session of ultrasound therapy, electric stimulation, and icing. The physiotherapist did notice inflammation, and said it usually takes a week to settle. Both doctor and physio told me that I can run, maybe less load, ice every day, so it can settle quickly.
Saturday was my mom’s last day here with us, so we hang out with her. She made girls favorite beef soup, and we stayed all until 9pm when she left. Fortunately, we will see her in one week time, so no tears this time around.
Highlight of Saturday was chatting with my BFF. It was the third Saturday that she called! We are making it a weekly tradition! It is soooo nice to talk to my BFF… nobody knows me as well as she does, and vice versa. I am sooo happy for it happening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday morning girls went to my office with my colleague’s family as there was an art painting for the planet event. Here’s Lizzy’s
she enjoyed visiting my office and drawing with my colleague’s daughter and her classmate. The girls played with their friends, many of them kids of my colleagues, had pizza and got home 1pm.
What did I do? I started this book, in preparation of our upcoming trip. I had this book for years and never picked it up. It’s quite entertaining, good introduction of French culture. I finished 1/3 in one day.
Girls did homework and played a while before heading to the gym for their weekly run. Lizzy did 15 min jogging 15 min incline walk, Sofia did 30 min of hill repeats. Love my little runners!!! 😀
I’d be lying if I say I’m doing well mentally to deal with this “niggle/injury”. I am trying to embrace for whatever it comes, marathon or no marathon, PB or no PB, but it is hard. I also don’t want to force my feelings going anywhere, to divert it to positive things like upcoming trip to Paris with the family, so I just let it come out whichever form it needs to take, observe it, and let it be and go. Not easy and I am trying.
Hope you had a good weekend. Have you ever dealt with injury? How did you manage the mental side of it?
Our New Journey 
Ug, I feel your pain here. The mental part of injury is hard! I am actually not very good at it, as I get a sense of FOMO, whether it is missing out on what others are doing or just missing out on what I could be doing personally! I usually try to channel my “energy” into some other productive thing at home or with people so that I do not feel like I am just sitting around doing nothing.
It seems like you did do that too, and had a good time with everyone, despite not being able to run. Hopefully after a week off, the inflammation will go down and you will be back in the game before you know it. But even if it takes a little longer, you may be fine. The second time I ran Boston, I got injured about six weeks before, and I ended up essentially taking a six week “taper” period. I did run the race in the end and I did run a lot slower than I had wanted to, but I decided it was better to rest and be able to run than to push through and not be able to finish (or start) the race at all.
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Thanks! I did 3 miles easy run today and no pain. Still this week is low load week to let it settle down. Mental battle is real but hopefully it’s getting somewhere. You ran Boston? That’s amazing!!! I didn’t know you were so into running. Why did you stop?
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I did not stop; I just do not race as much anymore. I think I got a bit burned out; I was racing more than a race per month at one point and it just started feeling like a job. I still like to run and do it maybe 3x per week, but just don’t really talk about it as much. My most used label on my blog aside from Travel is Running though!
Here’s my dossier: https://travelspot06.blogspot.com/p/races-places.html I actually ran Boston twice, once in 2013 (the bombing year) and once in 2014!
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I injured my hip badly two days before my first ever road race, in 2019. It took me months to be able to walk without limping, and that was with lots of physio and dry needling. Looking back, I could see it coming – I was definitely overtraining. But you don’t know what you don’t know, I guess. It was really hard, mentally, because I thought I would not only never run again, but I thought I would just always be in pain. It was pretty bad. But here we are – no pain, I can run (although I’m choosing not to, instead I do different things) and it was definitely an eye-opening experience to me on what is important, and that is mobility and longevity in my exercise.
Hope you have a good week – the mental piece of an injury is much harder than the physical one, I think.
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Ugh, I hate injuries so much!!! Yours sounds like it could heal up quickly. The best way to deal with it is to cross train, but I agree- nothing feels as good as running. I have my fingers crossed for you.
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Hope your “injury” heals up fast and isn’t any major problem! I know how nervous you must be about it though. Are you going to Shanghai for any special event? Or why so soon after your mom visited you are you going there? Not that that’s a bad thing- awesome!
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Ugh. Injuries are so frustrating. I was diagnosed with a stress fracture shortly after I moved to Charlotte in 2013. I was planning to run the Chicago marathon with other bloggers that fall. But the stress fracture wouldn’t heal and then I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I wonder if my foot pain was my RA all along but I will never know. It was so hard to not be able to run at that time. I could bike but only a recumbent bike which isn’t much of a workout.
I hope you are feeling better and can get back to the mileage this weekend!
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I have recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis also. Any tips for a newbie? I’m an avid exerciser (but not runner – knee issues).
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I am so sorry to hear this! The diagnosis can be so overwhelming! So I am sending hugs to you! I have had RA for over 10 years now so I can say that you can still live a full, active life. Getting the symptoms under management is key and then you should have a pretty normal lifestyle. My RA was in a terrible state when I was diagnosed so it took time to find the right drug combo. And admittedly I am trying to figure out the right cocktail of meds now as it seems like RA can find a way to ‘break through’ a drug regimen. But overall I feel good and no one would know I had a chronic illness unless I disclosed it. I have a rheumatologist that I love and trust so hopefully you can find that kind of resource too! Feel free to email me (Lisasyarns at gmail dot com) if you want to discuss this more. I didn’t know anyone with RA when I was diagnosed and I so wish I would have had someone to email with
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