Finally Spring!

Leaf alert!  It took forever this year, but we actually have some leaves on most of the trees.  Some are very small, but we've finally made it to the point where it just gets better from here.  The tiniest leaves appear one day, and in less than a week we have shade again.  The hostas poke out of the ground one day and then grow several inches every day until the world is lush and green.  Better late than never!

All in God's good timing, I suppose!  And speaking of timing, I begged for received a Garmin Forerunner 10 (aka fancy GPS running watch) for Mother's Day!  It's done a great job so far of showing me how inconsistent my pace can be when I run outside.  It's really fun having all those geeky details about my run right at my fingertips.  And there are even more geeky details to be found once I get home and plug it into the computer.

I'm sure you're all surprised to find that I approach running very scientifically.  Not that mentioning I had changed my breathing style to avoid injury would have given you a clue!  I'm sure I'll have much more to say about my Garmin once I've gotten to know it a bit better.  But three runs in I think it is so fun to know how far I've gone without being on the treadmill in the basement!

The first run with my fancy watch!
 (And my longest run since last August.)

It's a super busy week here, so that will have to be all for now!  I need to spend time making an exit plan for the school year...

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...(Ecclesiastes 3:1, ESV)

Too Amazing for Words...

The weather here went from this last Monday and Tuesday:

 To this on Thursday:

And, in addition to the weather becoming suddenly glorious with temperatures in the 70's, we did all of this:

John turned 12!

David

Anna and David went to their first formal!

Anna

And, in case that wasn't enough fun, the whole family went to a Twins game on Saturday, where the glorious weather continued and the Twins even won!

There was a cowboy hat giveaway, so now we have 7 of those!

Today the weather is so nice that we are having a bonfire tonight for Daniel's 10th birthday.  I was even inspired to clean the six months' worth of grime from the screened porch, where I am sitting now, enjoying, guess what? The glorious weather! 

Happy Birthday Daniel!

And if that isn't really enough about how great our last few days have been around here, I have also taken two outside runs.  I've left the squishy safety of the treadmill and have managed well so far on the hard asphalt, 3 miles each time.  This is a big milestone and I am so excited!

Someone needs a tan!

That's all for now!  Life is Different Here this week, and I am so thankful!

Sometimes Edwin Travels

Edwin has been traveling a lot.  If you're friends with him on Facebook you've seen his "Sometimes I go to _______" photos.  Sometimes I add smart comments like, "Sometimes you should take your wife!"  But you must know that I am glad he gets to go neat places; I'd be even more glad if we all got to go.  All that said, he's good at his job and I'm proud of him.

Last week he spent most of his time in Santiago, Chile, which means he had many hours on airplanes.  Someone out there invented the overnight flight, thinking it would be such a good use of time while the passengers sleep.  Maybe that's true for those people who can sleep on a plane!  Not so for poor Edwin.  He did some make up sleeping over the weekend.  He also ate lots of seafood in Chile, including octopus.  "Eeeewww!" and, "Did it stick to your tongue?" were the most-popular kid responses.

Looks like a lot of big cities, but it's early fall and still feels like summer!

Mount Hood from the air, taken on Edwin's last trip to Portland

Next week Edwin will spend most of the week in Portland, Oregon.  Since John is turning 12 on Tuesday we got to celebrate early, having his birthday lunch (Smash Burgers, his choice), cake (chocolate), and presents Sunday afternoon.  The good news is we'll treat Tuesday as special, too, so the birthday fun will continue.  And then there's Daniel's birthday to look forward to on April 29!

A friend pointed out to me that now all the kids will be in double digits (Daniel's turning 10).  I'm pretty sure that makes the parents pretty old; just saying!  We did get a bit of a late start with the kids, which is really noticeable when Edwin and I think of how we are now older than our parents were when he and I got married.  Let that one sink in a few minutes...

We've had a fun weekend here.  Lots of fun and family time, trying to recharge for the week ahead.  Maybe spring will come this week.  For now we're still covered in snow, but I do see some higher temps in the forecast.  There's even a chance for 70 degrees by next weekend.  That would be great, but for now just one green leaf on a tree would give me a mental boost.  As a friend of mine would say, "33rd day of spring, my foot!"  We love it here!

[Source]

Birthday pictures to come later in the week!  And if I see a leaf I will be sure to sound the alert!

Running Smarter (?) : What's Different

I mentioned that I was thinking differently about my running after that nasty tibial stress fracture.  At one point after almost three months on crutches, about the time we were really thinking I'd be heading into surgery sometime soon, Edwin looked at me and said, "I think you'd be crazy to ever run again."  I almost agreed with him at that point!  But one of the many things I learned while injured is that I had really (finally) learned to love running, and I definitely missed that part of my life.

My original training plan for last summer's half marathon has been studied and re-studied, and it was declared to be a reasonable, fine plan.  Theoretically, I did everything right.  And I still ended up with a major injury.  I'm not sure if that is supposed to make me feel better or not!  All I can do now is follow an improved plan, and hope and pray that I can continue to be a longer-distance runner.

Here are some of the things that are different now:

• This time I will listen to my body a little more closely!  What I gained in mental toughness was lost in time off for an injury that I ignored for too long.  Sometimes vigorous exercise causes pain; I get that.  But I hope that now I can tell the difference between general soreness and pinpoint, severe pain.  Lesson learned. I hope.
• This time I will not continue to push towards a goal race if, at the last minute, it seems best for me not to run.  I really thought that time off after the race would make everything better.  But the reality is that those extra 13.1 miles surely added to my time on crutches.

  

  [Source]

• This time I am cross-training. Really, this time.  I've been riding the exercise bike two or three times a week in addition to running three times, and that's building up my leg strength and adding to my cardiovascular endurance while keeping the weight off of that tibia.  Combine that with listening to my body and that means that some days when I want to run I end up biking because I am feeling that familiar spot on my shin bone a little too much.  And if it ever stops snowing I will really enjoy riding my almost-brand-new bike that's been collecting dust for way too long now!
• This time I am doing push-ups and a bit of strength work.  I will try to increase this with time, but I am still amazed at how wimpy my upper body was.  The first four weeks on crutches nearly killed me because I was not strong at all.  I'm working on that now.

  

  Now I can do 10! [From Pinterest]

• This time I am stretching much more deliberately.  I've always stretched, but I have noticed a difference since I've been timing myself to stretch longer.  And I can tell the next day, so I'm becoming a believer!
• This time I am trying to breathe differently.  This is hard because I am addicted to running with music, and the breathing advice I am trying to follow is decidedly off-beat.  IN-2-3-OUT-2, IN-2-3-OUT-2, IN-2-3-OUT-2.  I read about it here.  The whole thing is based on the fact that your core is weakest while you are exhaling, and some stress injuries occur because most of us breath in such a way that we are always exhaling while putting weight on our dominant leg.  So the five-count inhale/exhale process means that you exhale on the right leg this time, then the left leg next time.  It's worth a try as far as I'm concerned.  And I am getting used to it.

Well, that's more than enough for now.  I do hope to take an actual outdoor run for the first time in a very long while one of these days soon.  For now we're having an April Blizzard!  One last (I hope) picture of the current view from my front door...

April 18, 2013

Are you still having winter??

Do you love to run on the treadmill like I do??

Do you listen to music when you run??

'Nough Said...

Just in Time

Since the scenery has changed so much I thought the blog deserved an update.  I first need to say just how thankful I am that I have actually been off crutches and back to walking for exactly two weeks now.  It still feels like a miracle to me, since I really thought I would be getting a tibial rod for Christmas this year.  But the MRI results showed a huge improvement that couldn't be seen on an x-ray, and the actual results of me putting lots of weight on my leg have convinced me it must be much better.

Walking again after being one-legged for 13 weeks wasn't exactly fun.  It was a bit depressing to realize just how weak that leg had become and how much cardiovascular fitness I lost in that time.  But as I had long-since determined, I am not a good sedentary person, and that caused me to be so much happier moving around on my own despite the pain.  And it's already so. much. better.  Better enough for me to have spent two evenings standing around in high heels at the company Christmas parties (Yes, that is plural.  The company has grown so much it had two parties and we got to go to both!).  Yes, I felt that big time but was so happy to do it.

And yesterday I rode the exercise bike!  Today I walked a whole mile on the treadmill (in 20 minutes - gotta start somewhere!).  So the official rehab has begun.  This winter will be full of the exercise bike, walking and eventually running on the treadmill, and building up my leg strength.  No road running for a good while, and probably no skiing for me this winter.  The only reason I say "probably" is that winter is very long, and a lot can improve between now and March, so who knows?

I have to say that I really learned a lot from this whole stress fracture season of my life.  I am sure I will realize more as time goes by, but my main impression is how God always takes care of His children and works for their good.  He does not give us more than we can handle, though it may seem that way at times.  I am so proud of the way my kids stepped up to help the last three months!  And Edwin got so used to doing a million things a day for me that he is still doing some of them.  I am blessed to have them!  And so happy to be back on my two feet, just in time for Christmas.  Not a moment too soon for my sanity as well!

The Longer Haul

Now that I have declared this blog to not be a play by play of my family's life, here's another update (Maybe now that my guilt is relieved from admitting it I will be more likely to actually update!).  I mentioned in the last post that my "shin splint" situation was improving and I was hoping to run again soon.  But, alas, that is not the case.  A few days after writing that our family went bowling with some friends from church and I realized, after attempting to jump up & down to celebrate a great bowling achievement, that all was not at all well with my leg.  So the next day I called Dr. Sports Medicine and made an appointment.  He took some x-rays and presented me with the bad news that I appear to have a stress fracture of my tibia (shin bone).  Ugh.  No wonder is wasn't improving as fast as I'd hope.

The problem with the tibia is that it is a weight-bearing bone, and it does not really heal well as long as I continue to put all (or nearly half, anyway) of my weight on it.  Dr. Sports Medicine's solution? Crutches for the next two weeks and then a recheck.  No weight on the weight-bearing bone at all.  Well, we managed to survive the two weeks, but I knew all along that my leg did not seem much-improved.  I was not surprised that Dr. Sports Medicine said I would need to stay on the crutches a while longer, maybe as long as two months, but I was disappointed! 

I had an MRI, my first one ever, and what the doctor said was confirmed: I essentially have a broken leg, though it is not a complete fracture.  And the "stress reaction" encompasses 50% of the bone.  And the fracture is in a location where surgery is often required if the fracture is complete.  Dr. Sports Medicine doesn't think I will need surgery, but he wants me to see Dr. Orthopaedic Surgeon to get her opinion in the matter.

But I am leaving for a nice beach vacation tomorrow, I say.  No worries, he replies, you can see the surgeon after you get back, you need to be on the crutches at least that long anyway...

It was at this point that I realized this is no short-term matter.  I have actually found the long haul.  I knew that training for the half-marathon was going to require patience, endurance, and perseverance.  I knew there would be pain involved, too.  But I could not have predicted that what happened at the end of the training would be an even better opportunity for me to work on those qualities that I knew I lacked.

I have whined and complained about my crutches.  It has been a big adjustment for our family - Mom can't walk around, carry things, or face the grocery store.  But clearly two weeks wasn't long enough, because it wasn't until after that that I realized that I must move on to accepting, and even being grateful for my affliction.  I knew from the beginning that this is really a mild affliction by comparison to all the horrific things so many people are going through.  God is being kind to me to teach me some patience through this small thing.  But it is still my small thing, and I must trust Him to get me through it.  And hopefully I will do a little better at that in the weeks ahead!

I do hope to run again.  It is sad to see my little exercise ticker lady stopped at 353 miles.  She will surely not make it to her goal of 700 miles for the year.  Oh well.  God is in charge of my life and my legs, and He surely has a plan for me that does not involve running, at least for a time.  So for now I will focus on what I can do, and keep learning how to ask for and receive help gratefully. Superwoman I am not!

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. (James 1:2-3 ESV)

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17 ESV)

Cavemen in Paradise

Full report coming soon!!

Happy Easter 2012

The Plunge: A Pictoral Review

Oh What a Beautiful Morning...

One thing is for sure: the weather predictors around here have only a tiny advantage over the rest of us.  They are really only sure whether it will snow or rain or be sunny about five minutes before it happens.  This winter, looking out the window is about as helpful as checking the weather forecast.

That said, there are quite a few members of my family who were overjoyed to wake to the weatherman's miscalculation of the rain/snow line.  And although that meant some shovelling, we've had so little snow this winter that even on the eve of March they were happy to welcome it.

I have to say that this mild Minnesota winter has been a real blessing to me.  Last winter and its 144 days of snow cover wore me down to say the least.  This winter it hasn't been really cold (I have lived here nearly 13 years, mind you) for very many days in a row.  We've had a few below zero mornings, but we have had so many days in the 30's it's hard to believe.  And there has been hardly. any. snow.  Amazing!  It's a drought that started in the summer and has continued through the winter, which is certainly unusual in our, albeit limited, Minnesota experience. 

And I couldn't be more thankful.  Just a little rest from the pain that winter is, and I can wake up and be happy to see a big pile of snow.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
(Matthew 11:28-30 ESV)

Sports Photography

It's been a while and my blog is once again neglected.  I have not even gotten the Christmas pictures off of the camera yet, so it's that bad.  But I think I need to post something here, and my talented children, David and John, are coming to the rescue.  They took photos and videos of our ski trip last week and they are pretty good - at skiing, snowboarding, and catching it on "film."

We need a snowmaker for the backyard this year!

Ski Day!

He knows when you are skiing...

Safer Than It Looks

The Pond Octopus