Embellished Truth & Polite Fiction

First off? You’d think the swimmer side of me might be a *little* excited about this.. Not so much. Pray for Ames, she’s drowning… along with many other cities in Iowa. SO. MUCH. RAIN. Seriously. It seems as though Iowa made a resolution this year to try and steal the title of ‘Land of 10,000 Lakes’ from Minnesota. All that water paired with the excessive heat we’ve had? It literally feels like Iowa is melting into one gigantic puddle.

Are we underwater? No. We live on a hill, we’re good.

So, last time I posted I informed you that I had started running. How is that going? It was going very well! Until my ankles decided to rebel against me. Stupid ankles. As it turns out, I have tendinitis.

It is likely due to a case of TMTS – too much too soon. So I am now sidelined. I’m very very frustrated. I finally found something that was actually helping me to lose weight and slim down and now I can’t do it… for at least a couple weeks. So that sucks. I also have very small feet and most ankle braces start at a size 7. So I’m having trouble even finding a brace small enough to fit my ankle. It seems that only my local grocery store is willing to support people with midget feet. Who knew?

Sigh.

I’m hoping that by Novemberish I might be able to swing my own YMCA membership so that I can swim as much as I want, but until then I will be limited to 2-4x a week. The Gazelle is good for getting the sweat going and working some muscles, but it doesn’t really get the heart rate up like I need.

Enter the trike.

I know. You’re jealous. And really? Who could blame you?

I happen to be balance impaired. No, I don’t fall down a lot. I just can’t balance a bike. I also can’t roller skate, skate board, or coast on a scooter. However, I can roller blade and ice skate. Yeah. Figure that one out. Anyhow, I’m married to cyclist. So he bought me this here beauty so I can have my own set of wheels now that our kids are learning to ride bikes. I’ve had it for almost a year now, but haven’t ridden it all that much – mostly just up and down the dead end portion of the street that runs behind our house.

I pulled out the trike yesterday, dusted the webs off (seriously, we live in Iowa.. there’s always webs on stuff… there will probably be more webs on it when I get it out tomorrow), and hopped on for a spin. I rode it up and down The Hill (a favorite of our kids as well) behind the house 5 times – coasting down (which was actually a good work out for my quads since I had to brake the whole way down to avoid flying off the end of the street into the ravine at the end) and then pedaling back up ( O M G.. ow). We also happened to have Bible study last night, so we had a nice family ride. J rode his bike with the girls in tow, riding the trailer, Aidan and KJ rode their bikes and Torrin rode his scooter while I led the pack on my bad ass three wheeler. Yeah baby.

My butt hurts.

So now I have a sore butt and sore ankles. SCORE. It’s all good though, I got to swim at 6am this morning and that made it ALL better.

I have not yet managed to get myself a new pair of Vibrams (but my birthday is coming soon… anyone want to get me a present??).

The holes in my current pair have grown a little. One is all the way through. But it really doesn’t matter. They are still serving their purpose – protecting the soles of my feet from the streets and sidewalks. I am actually considering heading out unshod when I start up again. Mostly because it will keep me slower and more aware of my stride and what I’m stepping on. In other words, slower and more careful. But I’m undecided because I do run mostly late at night and I can’t see what’s out there ahead of me all that well in the DARK. Duh.

Whatever.

I have another week of resting and icing, compressing and elevating, to figure it all out.