and I haven’t killed myself or killed anyone, gotten a divorce, gained 100 pounds, or gone into a catatonic depression.  I did get depressed , though, and I had to unfollow my Facebook running groups and pages to make it less terrible. I did get so unhappy that I was barely interacting with my family and that wasn’t good. But, thank the good Lord who loves and keeps me from total self-destruction, I was able to get past the depression.

It helped that I was able to start walking again.  Sitting on my ass all day is so hard for me. My body was getting sore from doing nothing ! I only wore the boot for two days and never used the crutches. I did wear compression socks and an elastic brace on my ankle every day up until a couple of days ago.

The swelling finally went down in my ankle but the weird feeling in my shin/tibia area is not gone. I feel like I am getting some scar tissue around the ankle so I started working on that and that really HURTS! The best thing is have been able to go to the gym again. The elliptical provides me with a pretty good challenge as my balance is shaky if I don’t hold on to the handles. I assume that means I have weak core strength.  Today I did 30 minutes without holding on and picked up my pace a little, so I am improving quickly! I am not doing it every day because I don’t want to risk some new injury.

My back has been super stiff and I have a sciatica type pain that shoots down the front of my quad when I drive or sit on a soft chair. But I am feeling hopeful. My plan is to try to run at the 4 week mark and see how it feels. But I know it might be too soon, so I’m not getting my hopes up .

The weirdest thing is that I really have lost that extreme need to run every day that I had before. My brain has really adjusted quickly. I think having the ability to at least go for short ( 30 minutes) walks and do the elliptical was a big help. What I really miss is the race community. That is the only time I get to hang out with friends and go to the trails with them. There’s a race this weekend that I can’t run and I decided not to even try to walk it because it would be a waste of my limited race budget.  I decided not to volunteer either because I want to spend the weekend with my family and I’ll hopefully be back racing again soon enough and be missing family time.

The weather has been gorgeous and I did get to take a hike with my kids one day last week during their Spring Break. Only for one hour, but it was worth it! I love Buescher State Park’s trails even if they are short and are an out and back trail for now until they are repaired.

I have also started a new diet, way of eating, to try to keep the weight off and actually to lose 5-10 pounds. It’s a super popular idea that I didn’t know about until recently, intermittent fasting. I really like it and I feel good doing it. Basically you restrict your eating of ANY food or drinks with any calories in them to a certain time window. Most common seems to be 16:8 , which means all eating is done within those 8 hours. Other people stretch the non-eating period, or fast, for longer times. I’m amazed at how easy it has been to do this. Basically I skip breakfast completely and then eat lunch at noon , dinner at 5 or 6 and I don’t eat anything after that. I will have coffee around 8:00 but no sugar or creamer is allowed. I’m also trying to break my diet soda habit, but it’s so hard. Also breaking the sugar habit, again. I’ve been doing very well for almost two weeks and lost a few pounds already.

Focusing on the Intermittent Fasting and doing the elliptical has given me new goals to keep my mind off my foot and leg pain and healing time.  But I’ve also had some realizations during this period. A big one has been realizing just how ‘deep off in it’ I was with running. Now that I’m not doing it, I see how addicted I was to the endorphins, the constant thinking about running, the constant race planning and training planning and weekend run planning. It consumed my mind, but it also stressed me out , a lot. I had no time to think of much else. Now I am spending more time doing other things and thinking about other things, not just my diet, but homeschooling, getting out of debt, house cleaning and organizing, Bible study and reading, my future and just normal daily activities. I have time to do things! I also discovered Instagram and have been taking more pictures for that , but I’m already getting bored with it. Haha!

My life and thoughts had become unbalanced, which is not unusual for me. I like to push myself hard and challenge myself.  But it is a relief to be getting out of that cycle of stress and overdoing it. I can actually say and mean it, this recovery period is a good thing.