I'm still broken.

I'm broken.  This tendinitis has me not running for the week.  It still hurts, and I am seriously reconsidering my marathon goal.  I'm considering bumping it down from a 10:00/mile pace goal to a "show up at the starting line and finish" goal.

We'll see.  In the mean time, this week I have been resting, cross-training, and doing things at work like this:

Oxygen and I are PISSED OFF at this whole injury thing.

At least the weather has been crappy enough so I am not missing any good outside running.  The dogs, however, are thoroughly enjoying making snow puppy angels as well as getting all the good snow snacking they can handle:

All this snow got dumped on us on Tuesday, the day I was supposed to do a track ladder speed workout.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Wednesday I ended up taking the day off.  I meant to go do some stationary biking, but couldn't fit it in after I realized I had a massage that night (massages take priority over pretty much everything in my life, except the hubbs and the dogs).  My wonderful massage therapist worked on the top of my foot, but I think she overdid it--I woke up today hurting.

And, because I was in pain, I did something incredibly stupid--I wore some tight dress shoes to work.  I was in these shoes for all of an hour before the pain got too much.  I switched out of them into some sneakers, which complemented my dress pants and blazer quite nicely.  I sat in my office most of the day with ice on my foot, making videos and scoring my students' blogs.

I know.  My work life is an exciting breathless crazy whirlwind.  I'll give you a moment to let your head stop spinning.

After that stimulating day, I then changed and traipsed down the hallway to the fitness center, where I managed to get my butt onto a stationary bike in-between all the wrestlers and track stars in there doing their conditioning work.  And there my butt stayed for about 80 more minutes, whereby I did 25 miles on the "random hills" setting, dripping in sweat most of the time because I didn't realize the damn bike had a fan on it and worrying that I was going to catch some scary high school superbug bacterium that might be lingering on the handlebars and kill me within days surrounded by men in hazmat suits.  (I made like a doctor in the bathroom afterwards and scrubbed up to my elbows.  I'm a tad germophobic these days.)

On a brighter note, I registered for the Twin Cities Marathon in October, and got the goody bag I ordered along with it in the mail yesterday:

The bag is super nice.

I also purchased some new-fangled shoelaces that are really just tiny bungee cords masquerading as shoelaces and have fancy clips.  They're called Yankz! and the wonderful people who run the company out in Atlanta, Georgia were absolutely awesome about the fact that I put the wrong zip code for my billing address and forgot to put in my different shipping address and, despite my efforts to the contrary, shipped it successfully to me.

I bought two pairs (one purple, one white reflective) and, although they look pretty complicated to install, they were really easy to get on my shoes.  They are supposed to be more flexible when you're running (please to remember that I am injured because my laces were tied too tightly) and let your laces flex with your foot.  I put them on my favorite pair of shoes, and they really are comfortable, and your shoes stay snugly on your feet.  Not too bad for something that runs between $7.00-$8.00 a pair.

So, in sum, I'm still broken, but I'm not giving up hope.  My foot is feeling pretty good now after that biking session.  Tomorrow is upper-body weights, and Saturday....the schedule says an 18 mile pace run.  I'd like to do that long run, but I may have to do it more slowly than pace.  We'll have to evaluate this whole foot injury situation Saturday morning.