The tightrope walk

It's a fine line that we all run. It's a constant challenge to find a way to balance our lives. There's family, work, school, service in church, service in the community, extra activities, your kid's extra activities, and exercise. We try to create balance in our thoughts. Not obsessing about one particular thing. Putting proper priorities first. And then there's the fine line between soreness pain and injury pain. Knowing when we can push and when we need to back off. Lately I've felt like I'm on a tightrope. The line seems very thin. And so far I've been able to keep my balance up there. But with the marathon just a few weeks away I've been in panic mode a little bit more around here. Trying to figure out how to get back into things without re injury.

Last week was shaping up to be very nice. My foot was feeling good. Running actually helped loosen everything up and I felt better after running than I did before. I even had a couple of days where I was completely pain free. It was great. I had hope. I was pretty sure that I could run that marathon, slowly, but still finish. My week was also really busy and I had something going on every single night so that I didn't attend my cycling class or visit the swimming pool.

I did get to meet up with these sweet ladies though!

Heather, Ashley, Janae, and me

The weather sucked so I didn't bike outside either. I just ran. Well, and lifted weights and did the push up challenge. But probably not the smartest thing to do just coming off an injury. I was good until I had a little soreness after Friday's run.

Saturday was a scheduled 20 miler. I already knew I wasn't going to attempt that. It's that tightrope act again where I was trying to balance coming off an injury and still "train" for the marathon. I had planned to do an 8-10 miler and then try for a longer run broken in two the week after and then just do a 2 week taper.

It was a good run. It was a hard run. I chose to do it mostly uphill and ran the mountain by our house and around until I had gone up the canyon and got a ride home.

It was beautiful.

The sun kept coming out from behind the clouds and then back behind. So my gloves kept coming off and going back on.

The pain in my foot had moved upwards and felt different. It never got any worse, but didn't feel like it got loose like before. It wasn't until Sunday night that I was fully paying attention to it and realizing that it felt pretty bad. Different than before and it has me worried. I am not limping. I can not press down on a certain spot and have it hurt. It just hurts to walk on it. I am again taking it easy and will see what happens, but that marathon seems further out of reach. It was a long shot anyway. But that isn't making this any easier. I feel like I'm slipping off that tightrope. It's a fine line. And sometimes you just have to take it one day at a time.

last week:

Week 4 push up challenge

Monday: 3 mile run (1.5 miles barefoot), full body weights, week 4 push ups

Wednesday: 4.5 mile run in socks, full body weights, week 4 push ups

Friday: 5 mile run in socks, week 4 push ups

Saturday: 9 mile run (7 miles trail) in Evo's