Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The post about what I did in physio today

Since the Meredith Hagan run on Saturday, my right ankle has been feeling out of sorts.  I did not run again on Monday because there was a sharp pain in my ankle every time I rotated it.  I woke up early yesterday morning and did go for a run.  The air was really thick and I had a bad run. Even though I was out the door by 5:45 am, the humidity was already quite high.  I ran the same pace I was running last summer.  I was not happy.

This morning's run was a bit of an improvement.  My ankle is still a little sketchy, but it's better than it was Sunday and Monday.  My pace was better, but still not great.  I had my regular physio appointment today.  Graham took one look at my ankle and confirmed that it was quite swollen. My right ankle is the ankle that I have had trouble with my entire life.  I sprained it FOUR times. Once in primary school, once in middle school, once in high school and once as an adult when I was in my 20's.  And my sprains were bad.  I was rolling over on it as a morbidly obese person.

Needless to say, my right ankle is pretty week.  So now on top of working on strengthening my hamstrings, glutes and lower back, I have to start working on strengthening my ankle.  So Graham gave me more new exercises to do.  I tried them out at physio and discovered that I have horrible balance.  I already knew I had pretty poor balance, but it's a miracle I can stand upright.  Although it looks fairly easy in the pictures, I assure you it was the hardest thing I have had to do in physio to date!

Finding my balance...
Success!  For ten seconds...


























So the good news is that my condition is fixable.  The other good news is that I don't have to stop running to treat it.  The bad news is that I have to deal with it in the first place.  It's frustrating because as soon as something gets fixed, something else goes wrong.  Thank goodness I have unlimited physio benefits through my work.

I am officially back into weight-loss mode.  I'm eating lean protein and vegetables.  Pretty boring but I know it will get me the results I want.  I need to drop my upper thighs, hips and ass to become a faster runner.  Well that and do speed work of course.  Losing the extra weight I'm carrying certainly won't hurt my running performance.  I weighed in at 165.5 pounds on Monday morning.  I'll weigh myself again on July 7th to see where I stand.  I don't like to do frequent weigh-ins because when I was losing weight while following Dr. Poon's Metabolic Diet, I became obsessed with the scale.  It wasn't a fun place to be because my weight could fluctuate several pounds in a day and I was constantly weighing myself.  I've come a long way in that department because I can go weeks without weighing myself.

I wouldn't recommend going weeks without weighing yourself, unless you follow a very regimented eating plan.  I didn't cheat when I went from 290 to 165, and one of my biggest pet peeves is when people say that anyone who says they didn't cheat while dieting is a liar.  I don't lie.  And I didn't cheat.  Believe me or not, but I'm so addicted to sugar and carbs that if I did cheat, I would have derailed myself completely.  I cannot have just one!  I never gained weight during the 14 months it took me to lose 125 pounds.  I did gain weight when I tried to lose 10 pounds in April.  Although I gained 3 pounds, I dropped a clothing size.  I lost those three pounds when I switched over to Paleo.  And I still didn't cheat!

I know that these last 15 pounds are not going to come off easily.  I need to be patient.  And I need to keep my eye on the prize.  Eventually I will run the Boston Marathon.  That is my ultimate running goal (right now) and it's a lot of work to get there.  It won't happen this year, but maybe I'll be strong enough next year.  If not, my qualifying time changes (10 more minutes) once I hit 45. Maybe 2015 is my year.  If that doesn't pan out, it goes up another 1.5 hours when I hit 80. Boston in 2050 or bust baby!