Friday, October 1, 2010

Exercise: Days 5 and 6

Day 5 - Wednesday / 9/29

Went to the gym on my lunch break. Since I'm on a time constraint when I go during my lunch break (my gym is actually the next building over from my office!), I have to maximize the time I have so that means HIIT (high intensity interval training).

I hit the elliptical first and did twenty minutes of 1 / 2 minute intervals and then immediately got on the recumbent bike while my heart rate was still high and continued. I did 15 more minutes on the bike.

Hit the mats and did 5 minute cool down stretching.

Good workout.


Day 6 - Thursday / 9/30

Back story: Running is my workout of choice. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I hate doing it. I find it difficult and extremely challenging. But for those reasons, I LOVE it. Almost like an addiction.

Earlier this year I signed up for my first 5k and 10k races. It was very exciting. In April, I ran my first 5k and had an absolute blast training and participating. My 10k was set for August of this year and I was right on track to be able to hit the 6+ miles. Please know that I am NOT a fast runner, my goal was to just run the entire race without stopping.

Anyway, in June I was on my training plan and had already hit the 4 mile mark and running those half-way comfortably. I was VERY confident for my race. Then one night right before bedtime I was walking in my room barefoot and caught my little toe on the edge of one of my hand weights. PAIN! I hobbled into bed breathing deeply waiting for the pain to subside as a normal toe stub usually does. It didn't really go away though. In fact, my foot swelled just a tiny bit. I just figured it was a worse than normal stub and I went to sleep. The next morning, I still had pain and tenderness in my little toe on my right foot. So I did the mature, responsible thing and I told myself I was NOT going to run on it until the pain went away. Too many times in my past I have ignored small injuries due to my overwhelming running addiction and small injuries became big injuries.

For instance, once I ignored a nagging pain in my quad. My body was asking me to take a break. A small, tiny break. I just couldn't do it and I continued running. Well, that nagging pain turned into a partial tear of my quad and sidelined me for over 6 months. 6 painful months of not being able to do more than a casual walk due to pain. It was horrific. If I had just taken a day or two, I wouldn't have lost 6 months. But, lesson learned.

Back to my foot - my toe was still hurting the next day so I stayed off of it completely. After 3 or 4 days the pain was almost completely gone and I felt confident things were ok but I wanted to err on the side of caution. I waited two weeks. Exactly two weeks from that fateful night, I laced up and got on the treadmill. I was going to do things right. I set my sites on only 1.5 miles. I knew that trying to punch out a 4 mile run was not smart so I told myself to take it slow and steady. I got through that run with just one moment of a hint of pain but everything looked good. I rested a day and then did the run again. Rested a day then ran again. That last run was July 3rd. I woke up on Sunday July 4th and my toe was in PAIN. Same pain I felt the very first night I stubbed it.

So, once again, I stayed off it. Long story short: 3 months and 2 orthopedists later here I am. They did x-rays and nothing was broken but neither doctor could explain why the pain was there. One thought I needed an MRI and surgery so I went to the second who felt certain I just messed it up bad and told me I needed time. UGH. We also discussed what I was capable of doing as far as working out. So, I've been waiting and I can confidently say for the first time since June 12th (yeah, I know the date) I feel like it's FINALLY showing signs of improvement. I still have pain when I walk but it's NOTHING compared to even 2 weeks ago.

So, when you see my workouts they're gonna look a little on the easy side. My ortho told me I could do whatever I wanted (obviously not running) as long as what I was doing didn't cause pain. And right now, that's the elliptical (on LOW levels), the bike and walking (which sometimes I have to grin and bear it).

What's hardest about this injury? The fact that I was in pretty good, no, really good shape. I was burning calories left and right. And now, I'm on the elliptical doing intervals at levels 1 and 4 and yes, it FEELS difficult. It's amazing how long it takes us to build up our endurance and how quickly it dissolves.

In fact, my level 1 and 4 workout was so intense to me, that I actually tweaked my back Wednesday night. Right before bedtime I must have turned the wrong way because I spent the rest of my night on a heating pad. I even traded in my tough strength training DVD for just a 30 minute walk on Thursday because it still felt tender.

I know I'm doing what I need to do to get better but sometimes it's hard.

Anyway, just felt the need to share that.


Goal total:

215 / 250 minutes week 1

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30 Days to ... by JH is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.