Slightly Injured, Majorly Bummed

It's small, and I'm sure it will pass soon, but it's keeping me off the streets this week and that is bumming me out. Plus, I'm generally stressed with the program closure and all, I'm eating too much, which would be okay if I was running, but I'm not, so now to top it off I feel fat and out of control.

That was it, that was my whine. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

I wanted to hit 62 miles last week - the length of the 100K. I wanted to do it because the mysterious "they" say that if you can do it in a week, you can do it in a day. Since doing it in a day is exactly my intent, this made sense to me. I did the 50k on Sunday, so in the normal course of things, this should have been easily achievable: rest Monday, five on Tuesday, five on Wednesday, five Thursday morning and five that night, 11 on Saturday. It didn't quite work out like I planned. Tired legs Tuesday produced four miles. Wednesday was the five that was planned, but Thursday morning brought light snow and icy streets. I made that up by running to the track early on Thursday night, then running laps for a while before we ran to the park. Got ten in. Now I needed 12 on Saturday. I planned to run one mile loops at Bradley Lake - getting in the groove for Pac Rim in a few weeks.

Less than a half mile into my run towards the lake, I felt a strange cramping just above my foot - below the shin, above and between the ankle bones. It felt like it was cramping in an upside down horseshoe shape. Strange. Maybe my shoe was too tight. I loosened it and went on. The cramping continued off and on. Cramp, run a few steps, clear, and repeat. I fiddled with my shoe a couple times, but pushed on. (Silly me.) I recognized that this wasn't a normal muscle cramp type feeling, but since it was coming and going, I just kept running. Once I made it to coffee, I realized it hurt as I was sitting there. When we left and walked a half a block to another store, I found myself limping. Once we got home and I took my shoe off, the pain was gone. However, there was now a big, dark red bruise covering the area and it was beginning to swell. Ice, rest, ibuprofin. Skip the Sunday run. Finally decide I'm resting it till Saturday. It's better, still slightly sore, still slightly swollen, but the bruise is mostly gone.

I, of course, looked it up on the internet. I found this picture, and I believe I did something to the superior extensor retinaculum. (Whatever that is). Notice how it almost forms an arch - exactly where I felt the cramp? The thing that bugs me is that I don't know what I did - I know that I didn't bang it against anything, I know that I didn't stumble, or twist it. Repetitive stress injury? Could be. Funny that I ran a triple and a double and didn't have problems though. I just hope it heals well enough to let me get through 100K in 18 days!

Lasik update: Still great! Several people have asked about night vision. I have never had great night vision, but I haven't noticed any changes. There are halos around the lights, but I'm told that fades with time, and honestly, I don't even notice them. It's all good!

Program update: The big parent meeting is tomorrow night, I'll be glad when that is over. I've heard of two other colleges in the state that are closing their parent ed programs too, and many others are on the table. I have my resume together and sent one out this week to a specific posting. I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I do have a back up plan. I can teach ECE on the other campus next fall, but it would be about half-time. I'm looking around for a while before I make that committment.

That's the state of things here in our fair village. Hope things are going well in yours!