Lenten Valentine's Day

Here we are, going out to dinner after promising to have no alcohol and no sugar for six weeks. Poor planning!

In addition to giving things up, this year I'm trying to add some things in: specifically, a walk with David after dinner on nights when we don't have other obligations, and a little art in my free time. I tend to waste free time, and often put off large art projects until I have a big chunk of available time, like the weekend. For lent, I'm just working on small little low-stress projects, and it's been fun so far! I wonder how many I'll complete in six weeks?

Four pieces so far! 

I cut some bristol board into small 4 or 5 inch squares to ensure that the projects are small and doable on a week night.

If you practice lent, what are your plans?

Welcome, nephew!

My little brother Joey welcomed his second child this week!

HIs wife required an emergency C-section at 37 weeks, so this was slightly unexpected, but thankfully mother and baby are both just fine.

I can't wait to meet this little guy - and his sister, who, I am ashamed to say, I have still never met in person (in my defense, excuse the pun, they're military and keep moving around). Isn't he a cutie?

Sure wish I had something exciting to post

Nothing going on here, just working my way back to running...
My foot is better, but not "better". It's doing that annoying thing where it doesn't behave completely normally, and I panic and assume it's double-broken.
But it's not. I have been able to run without pain, and of course there is no pain with daily activities, but at night the top of my arch grows discolored! I can't figure out if it's mild swelling and inflammation, or if it's from wearing a shoe all day. My healed bone actually developed a large callous that changed the shape of my foot - my instep is higher now, because of this lump of bone - so shoes rub the area. But either way, it's freaking me out enough to keep my comeback slow. I am terrified to add mileage and end up stranded at mile 8 with a throbbing foot.

I assume that my foot will look more normal soon, but in the meantime I'm feeling my time off in other ways. I have to be careful not to put to much stress on any of my bones, not just the fractured one, since I probably lost some bone density while I was not doing much impact. I actually have been feeling a little iffy in my RIGHT foot, which I have thought since December may have a mild fracture or stress reaction of its own. I hope not, but I'm babying everything anyway.

But since hope springs eternal, I went ahead and registered for the Crescent City Classic 10k in 6 weeks, which isn't even a race I like. As if I can race in 6 weeks! Ah, ever the optimist. It will give me a goal as I comeback!

Test run

Comeback shorts: I saved my Christmas
present from David - new Coeur Sports
shorts - for my first run back. 

Today, I am officially 8 weeks out from my foot injury, and I decided it was time for a test run. David and I enjoyed dinner with a good friend last night, who just so happened to be the head of surgery at Tulane for decades, and anatomy professor for even longer. I discussed my injury with him, and he suggested trying out a run. He was pretty confident that, after eight weeks, a bone callous would have formed.
I haven't had any pain all week, either with walking, the hop test, or when pressing on the fracture site. So I thought it was probably safe (honestly, I had been planning to wait one more week, since I read somewhere that you should wait two weeks after it doesn't hurt to press the fracture area - but I bumped it up on his recommendation).

Yay! Three miles, including walking intervals, and no pain. Now, I'm trying not to be too excited, because maybe I'll be in pain again later in the day: that has happened to me before after a comeback, and I was so disappointed. But I'm pretty hopeful that today was the first step on the road to recovery.

The cool thing was, I ran into the Power Milers headed back from their Sunday morning long runs. Ah! I'll be back to join them soon!