Monday Mario

Deep in the lair of King Lazy Bum...

Wednesday Wings

I decided to leave all horse-related jazz under "Wednesday Wings" because she was a sweet lady and you can't beat the alliteration.

I stumbled upon an awesome volunteer opportunity where I get to do everything I'd love to do with horses (basically anything but ride them). Some of the horses in the volunteer program are rescue horses the ranch takes in and others are ones that are boarded there but their owners can't or don't get out often. I got paired up with an elderly gentleman (28 years young) named Rowdy:

He is such a sweet love bug!

Right now I spend lots of time brushing him (he's shedding which is like Mario shedding but 50x more surface area) and we walk around the ranch and look at the sights. After just one day with this horse I fell in love with him.

Monday Mario

Boyfriend made some fresh squeezed orange juice the other night and strained out the pulp. I let Mario eat the pulp as a treat.

It didn't lead to any new culinary makeup photos, but it gave us an awesome bunny tongue shot:

Can you touch your nose with your tongue? I think Mario can :)

As a follow-up to my Friday post, I have been running and it is going pretty good. I am experimenting with what type of support system I want to use on my ankle when I am running. I've tried various tape and brace combos and hopefully I will hit a winner soon. My ankle hasn't hurt at all during any run, but my foot has been achy due to either a tight tape job or the brace. So I really want to figure something out. I have to say I have lost a ton of fitness. My heart is racing at slow paces and I'm breathing like I'm doing a tempo run.

I have to admit I haven't yet dropped down to the 9 mile distance at Big Sur. I've got a couple more days to make a decision. Completing 9 miles won't be a problem. I moved my body a total of 7 miles yesterday. It is questionable whether I'll be in good enough shape to run 9 without taking walking breaks but I don't really care too much about that at this point. A part of me also wants to just do the marathon. It would be a looong day out there but I think I can make the cut-off time with a run/walk strategy.

The main reason I decided to give up the marathon a few weeks ago was because I didn't want to be tempted to run the last two weeks. I made it through and was patient and here I am. I sort of go back and forth about what I want to do. I'm sure the marathon won't be the most enjoyable experience, but I wouldn't be an endurance runner if I didn't embrace that aspect of running. Another part of me says I should just do the 9 mile race and refocus on future goals I've set for the rest of the year. Decisions, decisions...

Hallelujah

Monday Mario

Months ago I posted about Mario's fur spurs. The one featured in the former post has since grown and fallen out, but the other has kept hanging around and grown longer and thicker. It has taken on the texture of a bunny dreadlock and I am starting to wonder how much longer it will stick around.

He does keep his white feet mighty clean!

Blah

I have a confession that may surprise some of you: I hate to exercise.

This may sound totally strange coming from someone who ran 15 marathons last year but I don't consider running to be exercise. A lot of people left comments or tweeted me that I can use this time to swim or bike or do something else besides running. But everything else feels like exercise and I hate to exercise. I thought maybe I would do some upper body strength stuff, but I think I've done 15 push-ups total in the last 2+ weeks. I also wanted to get into consistent core work which is supposed to help the running, but my back/neck is still not 100% after the horse fall.

I don't run to stay fit (except to stay fit enough to run). I don't run to keep my weight down. Though I'm glad it is good for you, I don't even run for all the unseen health benefits running (lower cholesterol, longer life, etc) gives you. This makes it very hard for me to muster up any will to do any other form of exercise.

As such, I've been a bit of a couch potato the last two weeks and am really, really itching to get out for a run. I don't run for many healthy reasons but apparently it helps to keep me feeling good because I feel like a big ball of BLAH. You'd think the threat of loss of fitness which would negatively impact my running would be enough to motivate me. But no. And truthfully, I don't think I can really swim or bike without moving my ankle in ways the doctor wanted me to avoid.

My ankle is continuing to do better. I almost feel like it is in a cast because I am tightly wrapping it per doctor's orders every waking moment of the day and only get to see it for about 20 minutes every other day when I change the tape.

My supplies for taping and ankle brace wearing. Welcome to my new life.

I have another 1.5 weeks before my first run back...

Monday Mario

We had a fire in our building last week. The fire alarm went off at 3:30 am and after determining it was indeed a real fire (years of college housing fire alarms have sort of jaded me towards the validity of these early morning things) we evacuated. Mario was thrown rather unceremoniously into a duffel bag. The fire was located a floor beneath us. Our hallway was a bit smokey and the first stairway we attempted to go down was VERY smokey. We opened the door to the stairwell and immediately closed it and tried a different one. We had the presence of mind to get our car out of the garage so Mario was able to hang tight in the car the 1.5 hours it took for the firefighters to let us back inside. Everyone in the building got out and besides the apartment which had the fire, everyone else's place made it through okay.

The fire has made me rethink our preparedness for a sudden evacuation. On my to-do list since the Japan disaster is to finally get a good earthquake disaster kit together. I've added to this list getting a bag for Mario together which is ready with bedding/hay in the bottom and a bag of pellets. When we were leaving I grabbed a sheet out of the linen closet on the way out, thinking I'd put it in the bottom of the duffel bag to soak up any urine. When I set it down to get my shoes on, I forgot to pick it up before we fled the apartment. As such, poor Mario was in the bag with nothing to soak up the inevitable accident he had while waiting.

I know a lot of people who read this have animals and I strongly urge everyone to think about what you would do if you were awakened in the middle of the night and had to get out quickly.

Ankle Update

I went to see the podiatrist today.

Diagnosis: Left ankle acute sprain of the anterior talofilbular ligament, Chronic lateral ankle instability

The great news: NO BREAKS!

After evaluating me, the podiatrist first said that I could resume running. RoadBunner's heart soars. (I had mentioned I had a marathon coming up on May 1) We continued talking and it came out that not moving it much the next two weeks would be best to let a tight scar on the damaged ligament form. RoadBunner's heart drops. She asked if I could stand not running for TWO MORE WEEKS. It is a little hard for me to not run since she said my ankle could take it, but I want this to resolve long term as much as possible. So I am not going to run for two more weeks. Gah.

I am definitely downgrading my race distance at Big Sur. It is a blow but the race will be there next year. If Big Sur was my 52nd marathon of a 52 marathon streak year, I would get it done, but it is nothing of the sort so I'm playing it safe.

I did a two-for at the podiatrist today because my orthotics have been showing some wear and tear. I got them in 2006 and have worn them for every run ever since. Since I was in the office I had her evaluate them. The good news is that these $500+ suckers are still working good and she could replace the wearing softer bits. Also good news, since I'm not running anyway, I won't miss them. The last two months I've been dreading giving them up to have them resurfaced and not being able to run.

Goodbye, Old Friends. See you after the facelift.

We're doing a slightly different top to the orthotic that will have some cushioning so I'm excited about that. I always felt sad taking out the insole shoes come with and losing that layer of cushioning.

She diagnosed me with a chronic issue (previous ankle rolling has stretched and weakened the ligament) which means I am supposed to tape my ankle every time I run for the rest of my running life. Things could be much worse than this, but I find this terminal type of diagnosis sort of depressing. I'm going to start off both taping my ankle and wearing the ankle brace but I am hoping in maybe 6 months or so to wean off the brace. I'm sure I'll be tempted to stop taping down the road, but I'm going to try to remember how I had a relatively good year of not turning my ankle so seriously, and then BAM this happened.

She said that if I keep rolling it I could eventually experience a break or more serious damage which could necessitate surgery or end-game running. Surgery is an option if taping/bracing doesn't stop the rolling, but I am far from considering that at this point.

I think seeing your bones is pretty amazing so am including close ups of the films:

She said I have a nice amount of cartilage in my ankle there. Win?