2 chicks, a hernia and 4 miles

So I had this bright idea to hatch some chicks.  My friend's mom has chickens so she picked out 10 eggs for me and lent me her incubator.  All you have to do is keep the temperature at 99.5 degrees and turn each egg once in the morning and once in the evening.  So one day I checked the incubator and noticed that the temperature was only 80 degrees (a fuse had blown).  Then I went to the beach for the week and left my mom in charge of the eggs.  Well she felt it was too much of a hassle to drive back and forth to my house twice a day (a 5 mile commute) so she put the eggs into an egg carton, packed up the incubator and transported them to her house.  I came back from vacation and decided just to leave them there until they hatched.  I didn't want to jostle them too much.  So Monday night one of the eggs cracked and by Tuesday morning a chick had hatched.  Two more hatched my Wednesday.  However, one of them died by Friday.  No more eggs ever hatched.  Hmmmm maybe they weren't fertilized, maybe they were too weak to survive the temp change and the move.  Who knows?  Now I'm left with two cute chicks.  My dad is worried they won't survive the winter in their coop with only two chicks to huddle.  Therefore, I am looking into buying 2 or 3 more chicks.  Hopefully in the next 4-6 months I'll have my very own fresh eggs to eat each morning!

As for this hernia.  I have continued to run and I made it up to 3 miles before I went to my follow up appointment last week.  I told him that my lower leg was still bulging after running.  He suggested I put a folded up piece of gauze over the area and tape it there to hold it in.  I did this and boy what a difference it made.  He also informed me I could begin training for a marathon again.  I got super excited and decided it would be a great idea to train for the Rock and Roll Arizona Marathon.  Then I thought about it and realized it may just be better to ease back into this and shoot for the Delaware Marathon in May.  After all the director already took my payment from 2011 and applied it to 2012 (no refunds).  Also, I am still not sold on this hernia thing or the fact that I should be running on it.  So I am working on getting an appointment to see a sports medicine doctor for a second opinion.  I may be acting overly cautious here, but I'd rather err on the side of caution than encounter 4 months of suffering again.

Just yesterday I ventured out to see if I could handle a 4 mile run.  So I taped up my "hernia", warmed up with a walk, stretched and hit the pavement.  I felt awesome at the beginning of my run, like I never stopped running.  After about 3 miles my achilles began to act up so I stopped to stretch.  I made it to my friends house for a total of 4.06 miles .  I sat and chatted with her for about 45 minutes then headed home.  My achilles didn't hurt at all and the rest of me felt great too.  I was so excited!  Thank you Lord!  I'm running again tomorrow morning so we'll see how I feel after a "long" run. 

Take that "lower leg hernia"!!

slow and steady

Well I ran last Wednesday for the first time in a month.  I warmed up on the elliptical for a half hour, stretched out my achilles then ran a mile on the treadmill at a 10 minute pace.  Right away I could feel my ankle and after 5 mins my ankle stopped but my achilles tightened up.  Overall it was not a great run.  I left feeling pretty defeated.  I came home to ice and do heel drops.  Recently I read about an experiment to improve achilles tendonitis.  It focuses on eccentric calf exercises - heel drops off the edge of a step with a straight leg then a bent leg.  It recommends 3 sets of 15 reps of each type twice a day.  That's 180 heel drops a day - ugh!  So time consuming.  However, I'm willing to try anything at this point.  The experiment showed improvement in 70% of its patients.  That is after 6 months of 180 heel drops a day!!  So Friday I ran a mile outside and I had no pain at all!  I was so thankful!  Brent and I went for a run last night and I felt good then too.  However, I went to run this morning and I did not feel nearly as good as the last two.  I guess this could be expected.  I am sure it's going to come in waves.  I made sure to ice as soon as I got back.  Later I did heel drops and iced again.  I'm praying Wednesday's run goes better.  Meanwhile I'll be doing more heel drops, icing and cross training.  This journey is definitely taking longer than I had ever envisioned, but I'm not ready to give up.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.