Cold Turkey

So my PT made me run again Tuesday.  On the treadmill.  For 3 minutes.  And it was ok.  Even so the next day.  So today, while walking my dog, I ran off and on, for about 3-4 minutes.  As always, tomorrow will tell.  My PT is about ready to cut me off.  Cold turkey.

I've been reading Out of the Dust with my ELL students and the main character, a piano playing adolescent in the 1930s during the dust storms, tries to play the piano again after her hands have been burned by a freak accident.  She is told to play through the pain to stretch her fingers and skin, to heal.  Text to Self: it is time to run, and stretch through my pain to regain my strength.  My biggest hurdles are deciphering bad pain versus healing pain, running when I am not fast, not being able to pick up where I left off.  Another way to look at it, more positively, running can become my new crush (again).  Those short, quick glimpses that set your heart racing...I'm ready to fall head over heels, again.

School Dayz Blues

Back at school teaching.  This unfortunately coincided with my first attempts at running.  Certainly not a good mix.  I've decided to stop running for a little while.  Month?  Two?  Because I am on my feet most of the day-- there's really no way around it-- and the floors are concrete, the bottom of my heel hurts enough that my brain tells my body not to get up, let alone walk.  For the past week, I have been wearing my Dansko or Chaco sandals.  Not the minimalist shoes that I know and love; however, I need some sort of buffer between my heel and the floor.  Neither shoe has much arch support, so I tell myself and this somehow justifies it in my mind--I've become such the barefoot shoe snob (coffee snob...beer snob, but not snob all by itself). Truth be told, I used to walk to my college classes barefoot.  I went to a small liberal arts, hippie, Quaker school.  Anyway, I am beginning to feel like I can walk around barefoot a little bit, so I am hopeful to be back in my Fivefingers soon.  My PT is not worried, so I am working at not being worried.

Update on my current at home exercises:
1. 100 calf raises (still splitting these up, about 30 per time)
2. calf stretches
3. steamboats (these involve a a couch leg, stretchy tubing/tape tied around couch leg, or if at work, desk leg.  In fact I have 1 at work and two at home, upstairs and downstairs)
4. single leg balance with my 8 year old throwing something at me to catch, usually a stuffed hippo named Hippie

I work to do these twice per day, minimum.

So everyday require motivation to the ultimate goal.  Life certainly gets in the way, and it isn't always easy.  I see the PT once per week as it keeps me honest, and Dr. Nick checks in periodically via email.  I'm walking the dog and can walk the 1/2 mile into town without any trouble.  This in itself is progress.