What a week

Oh there was certainly something I wanted to write about. But I totally forgot!

This week has been absolutely insane. Our local music festival, Bluesfest, is on. I volunteer there for 6 shifts of 4 hours each. Then hubby meets me and we watch a few shows. We've seen some great ones so far, especially Basia Bulat and Arcade Fire. Passion Pit was awesome, too.

On top of that, work has been nuts, too. I've been working lots of overtime. Thankfully I'm on vacation next week... but the first four days involve a trip to the Baltimore area to visit friends. I need to pack! But I'm definitely looking forward to a change of scenery and a change in running routes.

Tomorrow I plan to get up early to run my hill training. Last week's hilly run didn't go so well, as it was way too hot and I was tired and slightly hungover from the night before. Not a good recipe for a good training run! I missed my Thursday run this week thanks to the craziness at work. I can definitely say I'm looking forward to getting back to a normal schedule again.

Settling into a routine

I'm slowly getting back into my running routine again. It's funny how life adapts itself to more or less free time.

Life is busy right now and it's actually getting difficult for me to fit in my short little runs. Husband and I started taking our wine courses again, which we'd put off for a number of reasons. They're not cheap when there's two of you taking them and they're a big time commitment. This class is done after this weekend, thankfully just in time for us to start a new project.

Car shopping. Joy. Our car got a death sentence on Thursday, so I ended up nixing my run yesterday to look at cars. But in one evening we only managed to look at two cars. Ugh. No matter what, we need a new car ASAP. Husband works in the other end of town and the bus isn't a viable transportation method for him over the long term.

I got good news at Physio on Wednesday: I'm down to one appointment every other week. She's hoping to discharge me in July, if all goes well. Now just to fit in those runs!

Riding the Pine...

I submitted my request to be put on IR to our Miles Game team captain on Runners World Online. I've run 4K in three months. I didn't think it was fair to keep posting zeros when the team could use a player in my spot to actually post miles. There has been a shortage of players for the Miles Game recently, but I hope the team can get a new player in my place.

I think I'll be going back to the doctor as soon as I can get an appointment. I've read up on my pain and what my symptoms are and I get so totally overwhelmed. Should I see a chiropractor? I'm not a fan of them, but if it'll help, maybe I should see one. Should I see a different sports medicine doctor? Do I need cortisone shots? Do I need surgery? What about a physiatrist? So far I've just booked to massage therapy appointments for my back, at my physiotherapist's request. In other news, the exercises are coming along. The pain isn't really improving or going away. The dry needling appointments are pure torture... I try my best to do as much as I can.

In the meantime, I've started cooking. I made quiche on Saturday from a recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry. It was a pretty good recipe, using brown rice as the crust, and with a head of broccoli, roasted red peppers and swiss cheese. Yum!

On Sunday I roasted a chicken, following another ESBM recipe, the Roastess with the Mostess. I have a hard time doing roast chicken properly. It never cooks through, despite following the directions and using a meat thermometer. I think our chicken was still frozen on the inside, despite the fact it sat in the fridge for two days. The marinade was really tasty - lots of lemon and thyme flavour that carried through the meat.

I decided to stop wasting chicken carcasses, so I promptly cut off the leftover meat and tossed the chicken into water, along with some herbs, onions and carrots. I left the stock to simmer for 4 hours. I'm hoping to transform it into chicken soup tonight!

Same old, same old.

Not much is new with me. I'm not running yet. I'm still going to physio, though not much has changed. The pain is no longer in my foot, but in my back, pelvis and hips. She added in ultrasound to dull the back pain, which I absolutely love. Last week she buttered me up with the ultrasound and then did some dry needling... that was a bit of a shock to say the least!

I've been good about doing my McKenzie method exercises, which she calls cobras. It's a set of 10 yoga-like stretches for my lower back that I do lying on the floor. I even brought my yoga mat to work so I can do them in my office. But, I need to get better at doing the other exercises.

So I'm bribing myself: if I do the exercises every day for a week, I can buy myself the stainless steel waterbottle I want at Lululemon!

During my layoff from running I'm working on getting our house in order. I've started shredding old documents and organizing my filing. It's almost a spring cleaning mission! We bought a new cabinet for over the toilet, which has added some much needed storage to our bathroom. I'm looking forward to painting the bathroom in the near future, too! I really hate the colour in there... it kind of looks like pablum. I'm also trying to finish off some projects that I started and never completed... like lining all the shelves in our cupboards.

At this point I'm trying not to think about running.