I'm dreaming of a break for Christmas

The next two hours are going to be the longest two of my life.

No, scratch that. Tomorrow, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m….those will be the longest hours of my life.

There comes a point in collegiate teaching where you don’t have to teach class anymore…you have high hopes of making lecture notes over Christmas break…and you’re frankly just ready to go home. I reached that point around noon today. Technically, I reached it at 4 p.m. yesterday, when my class ended.

I actually have a couple of things left to accomplish. But they’re small, mundane items that will take about two hours to accomplish. And, as I will need something to do tomorrow, they can obviously wait.

I want to go home and bake. It’s almost Christmas, and I want to bake. I actually have a list, to be honest:

* Gingerbread biscotti

* This delicious-looking peppermint pie

* A chocolate pecan pie (which will be made Sunday)

* Sugar cookies with frosting

* Dinner tonight (BBQ cups – ask me for the recipe! I’ll be happy to give it to you!)

This is coupled with the fact, I’m sure, that I am resting my *^&%^#$ ankle until Monday. No exercise. And, on Monday morning, if that #@$%^* ankle is still hurting after I “test run” it, I’m going to see a doctor. Hopefully, though, rest, ice, elevation, and ibuprofen are all that is needed. We shall see.

As a late Tinsel Vixen report, I gained a pound back. No surprise there with a trip to see my family and lots of good food and a lack of exercise. I’m just thankful it was only a pound! (And, as I weighed at night and not at lunch time, there *might* be a slight difference. MIGHT.)

Sigh. One hour and 55 minutes to go. And then eight hours tomorrow.

BRING ON CHRISTMAS BREAK!

 (Christmas card picture taken by Donald Page)

‘Hood checkup

Well, I feel this week has been a success. I lost 2.8 lbs this week – not sure how that’s possible, but maybe all that healthy eating has caught up with me. Finally. 'Course, now all I want is a Little Debbie Christmas tree cake.

I’m planning on trying to run tomorrow morning. I’ve been cycling constantly, and I did weights, but now it’s time to get back to bizness. I miss feeling accomplished with a good, strong run. However, I have been extremely happy with getting on the exercise bike inside, so running outside is not going to be a fun experience for me. And when you’re alternative is a treadmill, it’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Other than that, this week has been revival week at our church. Can I just say for a moment how much I love our church? Last night was Youth Emphasis Night, and more than 300 students from area schools came out for free pizza and to hear the message. THEN more than 116 of those students went forward, and 80 of them accepted Christ as Savior! Hooray!!!

The sweetest moment of the night came before I even stepped foot in church, though. Tonight, see, we’re having a steak dinner before revival, and we all had to purchase tickets for the meal. I was walking in with three high school students and an older couple, and the husband of the couple tapped one of the boys on the shoulder and said, “Hey, we’re having a steak dinner tomorrow night. Here are some tickets for you and your friends to come again tomorrow.”

It just made me smile to see that. Another lady, after receiving steak tickets from another member, told me, “Everyone is just so kind at this church.” It’s nice to see that after all the religious scandals that make headlines and seemingly endless local bitterness that some people still have a positive view on church and, most importantly, on God.

So that’s my update. Let’s hope tomorrow is a running day!

The Injury

It’s not even a “real” injury. A “real” injury is when I can’t walk, period. Or when it hurts to walk. No, this one just kicks in after I’ve run about a half a mile.

Stupid ankle injury.

I have no idea how I hurt my ankle or what is actually hurt. It’s my right, inner ankle bone, and it’s right on the bone. It hurts when I press it. Found that one out in church yesterday. Yeah, smart, I know. Let’s press what hurts.

When Kelsey and I ran our 10k back in October, I hurt it then. The sidewalk was a bit sideways, and I don’t know if I pulled/strained/stretched or what, but it started hurting. But it was fine in my next run. But this Friday it kicked back up again. I ran five miles Friday, which was a mistake for multiple reasons. Reason 1: I didn’t have my route memorized, so I had to double back once to get it right. Reason 2: I didn’t wear my blister-preventing socks because “five miles isn’t a lot!” so now I have blisters. Reason 3: My ankle started killing me.

I supposedly stayed off it Saturday. Translation: I just walked for two hours up hills – no running needed. However, it did not hurt once.

I iced it multiple times Saturday night and Sunday morning in preparation for a eight or nine mile run. I could feel that it was still tender, but, since I’m not sure what caused it, I thought that it just needed to be stretched out or strengthened through running (As I’ve asked pretty much everyone’s opinion on the subject of hurt ankles, one of the schools of thought is that I have weak ankles.).

We had to walk a lot because of me. By Mile 3, when we were walking uphill, Kelsey asked, “Is your ankle hurting?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

“I can tell. You’re limping.”

Well, poo.

I hadn’t realized I was limping. When she said that, it finally clicked: I need rest.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

One of the worst things you can tell a runner is not to run. Indefinitely (though I’ll probably try again Wednesday – and if it starts hurting, I promise to stop). Especially one training for a dadgum half-marathon.

So guess what’s about to become my best friend? A stationary bike. And ice.

I do see benefits to a hopefully short hiatus, though. First, our revival started yesterday and goes through Wednesday. So I can go to the revival and not worry, “Okay, am I running before or after revival? Should I wear my running clothes there? Where should we run, since it’ll be dark?” That’s not an option right now.

Also, Hubby and I saw Rindy and her husband last night, and I gave her the bad news about my ankle. As soon as I got finished, my husband started in.

“Okay, we’ve GOT to run this week, even if it’s at 5:30 a.m.,” he said seriously. “And we’re going out of town this weekend, so we need to be accountable and run on our own, too. We don’t have much time before this half-marathon, and we need to get into shape.”

I think I might have swooned.

Holiday hoedown update

Meant to update this last week, but when your boss lets you off work basically a day early, everything else takes a backseat to relaxing. ;)

SO. Let's do a two week recap, shall we?

First, let's talk about eating. While I'm still snacking on chocolate and everything else sweet that I can lay my hands on, I have been eating my three fruits/veggies a day. Some days I thank God for V8, though, because that's sometimes the best I can do.

We also added a goal of drinking 8 glasses of water a day. I hit this on most days because I drink a lot of water anyway. I've been doing it since high school, so this one is easy to fix.

Exercise: 3x/30 mins. I've done well on this, exceeding most of the time because a) sometimes when I run, it's only 2 miles, and I want to hit that 30 min mark and b) I run a lot. However, I've been doing other exercises more, like weights and biking, which has been a nice, easy change from the running. HOWEVER, I've completed an eight-mile route twice in the past two weeks (I actually ran 10 miles total on Sunday), but I want my "everyday" runs to get longer. It's just so hard to do that with work, school, blah.

What's funny is my weight, though. After the first week, I GAINED 1.9 lbs. EEK!! But that's okay, because I actually weighed myself at a different time the second go-around, so I feel that had a LOT to do with it. This week, I weighed myself at lunch (like the first week) and (ahem) gained .7 lb from when we first started this challenge. Fan-stinking-tastic.

I'm not weight-obsessed; I'm really not. And I'm starting to realize that my diet needs to change, and that's happening, so I'm holding out hope that within the next few weeks, I can go a little lower on that weight. =)