calf injury | Fitness is Sweet

One more day until the weekend! Woohoo! It’s a long day for me-early morning run/workout then class 9-5, then flag football practice.

Crossfit this morning ended up being particularly brutal. The posted workout was one I had done before in about 8 minutes. When I arrived, I was greeted by this marathon WOD.

I was DONE after this one!

There are a few topics I want to address today.

1. Phantoms

2. Dorm Snack Tips

So let’s start with the phantoms. I was visited by an old friend today-a phantom- in the form of a phantom pain. Fitting, right? My calf has felt kind of off since yesterday’s spin workout. I felt a tiny twinge then, and it’s felt kind of weird all day. I can’t exactly find the pain, but something is off, but it’s in the same as my calf injury I suffered before my last half. Which naturally freaked me out. I didn’t feel any pain running in Crossfit. I’ve felt a tiny bit of SOMETHING here or there on random steps. I was scheduled to run a hilly 6 miles today, as well as go to flag football practice. Well, I decided to do the smart thing and scrap those both. It’s not worth the risk. There’s another important lesson here-I used to always go to practice for my sports team no matter what, sick, injured, dying, etc. If I made a commitment, I HAD to stick to it. That attitude almost convinced me to go to practice. But I had to think about it-in the long run my half is way more important for me, and I have to do what’s best for my body, even if it means saying no.

So today, I’ve rolled out a ton; my calves, arches, and achilles are all tight and sore, so I hope I’m nipping this thing in the bud and it’s just tightness. I did the best thing possible too by making it to a yoga class. My legs and calves feel 1000x better now. Taking care of yourself is so important! I think I’m feeling up for a run tomorrow, although I won’t be doing the hill sprints I had planned, just an easy run.

And now-dorm snacking tips! Two of today’s snacks are some of my go-to fast, healthy, and dormable eats. The first is guacamole. I buy guacamole mix, which is usually just a blend of spices. Then, simply make as much as you want. I used half an avocado-the perfect amount for one serving. Then, just add the mix to taste, reseal the rest, and BOOM. Instant guacamole.

I love eating this with veggies. Today, I dipped snap peas and carrots because that’s what I have stocked in my fridge.

Now-dorm snack #2. Make quick bread and freeze it. It seriously stays fresh forever. I had pumpkin bread all spring, and the bread I found in my freezer today moved home from college with me in May, and back with me now. It’s a great healthy snack, and will curb those incessant muffin cravings (I CAN’T be the only one?). It’s also great if you don’t want to eat a whole loaf at once.

And if you’re me, you’ll probably break pieces off before it’s finished heating up. Confession: most of my bread pictures look like this.

And on one last note-my parents had to move to a hotel for a few weeks while they fix up the house, and they moved the kitties today. Isn’t this the saddest thing you’ve ever seen?

Poor thing.

Can you ever sense an injury coming on? What are your go-to snacks?

Hey guys! I’ve been meaning to post the last few days, but things keep coming up! I can’t believe I forgot about WIAW! Who am I??

Before we get to the deliciousness, let’s talk fitness and the status of my calf. I’ve been going to physical therapy all week, and I think it’s definitely helping. My physical therapist is great-my dad is friends with him since my dad has all kinds of things wrong with him. I’m getting the whole 9 yards-calf exercises, stretching, ultrasound, laser treatment, electrocution. Ok maybe they don’t actually call it electrocution, but what would you call getting electricity pumped into your leg?

Wednesday was another spin class. It’s one way for me to keep up my cardiovascular fitness. My spin teacher actually just tore her calf muscle, and she can’t exercise at all for like 6 weeks, so I shared miseries with her. After spin, I tested my calf by doing a lap around the parking lot with almost no pain.

This morning was the real test though. I wanted to run 2 miles, so I went to the track. That way, if I had to stop, the farthest away I’d be from the starting point was 200 meters! To be honest, I was expecting running to be painful. And it wasn’t. Thank goodness! At least not for the first mile. My calf started hurting a little bit after that, so I called it quits after a mile and a half. I didn’t want to push it-that’s what race day is for!

All I could think of today-legs don’t fail me now!Not after all this work!

Then tonight at Crossfit, I felt no pain and was able to do everything, which I am ecstatic about. I ran 1400 meters total during Crossfit, so my total mileage for the day was almost 3.

So the verdict? I’ll be fine by race day. It starts hurting when it gets tired so the next step is rebuilding strength. I’ll be good to go for race day, but the rate of healing will determine how ugly the race and aftermath is. I can’t help but think I jinxed myself by ordering this shirt:

So the plan? Crossfit tomorrow morning. If it still feels ok, I’m going to try for 1.5 miles. Then, I’ll try another 1.5 in the evening. I want to get the mileage in, but having recovery time will really help. Of course I’ll back off if I feel pain. My family and I are going to San Luis Obispo this weekend, so Saturday we have a hike planned. I found a great route for my run on Sunday. It’s a 5 mile loop, which I’ll attempt to run, but walk as necessary.

Ok, enough of that. On to the food!

I had a great salad from Cooking Light the other day- an Avocado Cobb salad! The dressing was made with creamy avocados, and the salad included chicken breast, hard boiled egg, avocado, goat cheese (it called for bleu but that freaks my mom out), and tomatoes. It called for bacon, but I don’t eat it and the only bacon we had was gray…so we subbed chicken sausage, which was actually quite delicious!

Wednesday night I went to the Giant’s game. They lost, booo. But that doesn’t take away from the delicious food offerings at the San Francisco ballpark!

For dinner, a Cha-cha bowl. It’s rice, black beans, and chicken breast topped with a veggie slaw (with pineapple!). They were able to make mine without rice and with extra veggies-yum!

We also enjoyed some unpictured garlic fries-I mean it is a ballgame, right?

And no AT&T park visit is complete without a Ghiradelli hot fudge sundae. If that doesn’t taste like San Francisco, I don’t know what does.

And of course a windy selfie. Only in SF would you bundle up to go to a mid-summer baseball game. I broke out the leg warmers and uggs, sweatshirt, fleece Northface, and a blanket. Brrrr.

Sadly, all the ballpark food (ok, probably mostly the fries and sundae) left me with a stomachache today. I decided that I need to make more of an effort to base my meals off of fruit and veggies, so I decided a bowl of assorted fruit and sunflower seed butter would do the trick for breakfast.

Here’s an obligatory kitten nursery photo. The kittens are doing much better! They were all pretty healthy and VERY energetic. One little guy thought it would be the most fun thing in the world to constantly, out of nowhere, leap from the table onto my shoulder, which is a bit of a problem since we’re technically still on quarantine.

This evening, I went to a local farmer’s market downtown. I didn’t take a ton of pictures, but I thought you nut butter fans out there would appreciate this vendor:Maybe I’ll have to try butterscotch sunflower seed butter! I wish my face didn’t hate nuts…Last year I got my dad chocolate bacon peanut butter.

I also got some beautifully delicious figs. I love figs but they’re always super pricey at the grocery store.

And another highlight?

Mini pies. Sweet potato and lemon strawberry. They were just perfect, and not too sweet.

I’ll leave you guys with that! Have a great Friday!

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