Another Setback

It's been a difficult week.  My foot swelled up from too much walking last weekend and I had to take an entire day off to elevate the foot, and yesterday (when I only did 30 minutes of cycling) the entire left leg swelled up about an extra inch.  My knee is still periodically bothering me when I exercise and I'm really afraid I did something bad to it. 

It seems like I'm actually in worse shape now than when I started treatment for the broken foot.  Not I'm not sure if I could even do the half marathon coming up in 5 weeks or the Nike Women's marathon.  I found out you can at least unofficially downgrade to the half marathon, but if something is really wrong with my knee or leg then I might be up the creek with no paddle anyway.

The only thing I can do is cycling, but even that's bothering my knee slightly.  It's hard not to be depressed or to be motivated when the foot/leg/knee keeps going downhill. :(

Heart is Pumping...

Hit the gym after work and noticed I cycle harder when I'm not as sleepy.  I will have to remember this and maybe vary my early AM sessions with PM sessions occasionally.  It was a good workout today.

I flipped through some of the facebook photos from the Nike Women's Marathon 2010 and my heart was pumping pretty hard.  I'm pumped!  I want this so bad but I also want to be able to run healthy. 

I'm transitioning to most of the day in the boot and then the rest of the day in the hiking shoe.  So far so good.  Even cycling in the hiking shoes feel better than in the running shoes.  I think I'm really going to do the race in the hiking shoes.

Should've started training by now...

I went to see the podiatrist again on Thursday.  He was surprised I was in the boot again, but I explained what happened at the street fair.  He took a new set of x-rays and says the bone looks better.  I'm somewhat encouraged.  He said he's all for me taking the boot off now and start walking on it, but I told him I wanted to keep in on for six consecutive weeks since I don't really have time to screw up with the healing again.  He said that was fine, as long as I took a couple of days off the boot before I see him again a three and a half weeks. 

The problem is that the boot has been throwing off my left knee for some reason.  I'm kind of concerned since it was a kind of knee pain I haven't had before.  My original plan was to keep it on another two and a half weeks, but I can't afford to mess up the knee, so I'm going to try transitioning into the walking boots (which the podiatrist liked as a post walker boot idea) right now and just carrying the walker boot around.  I did that yesterday afternoon and so far no pain.  I hope I haven't done something bad to my knee x_x  That is the last thing I need to be happening.

So I would have started my 16 week marathon program two Monday's ago if I were on a non-modified.  Instead I've just been hitting the gym and doing a lot of cycling.  I'm not cardioing hard enough to see significant weight loss, but I see improvements in the conditioning from my weight training.  I'm hoping this carries along to the race itself.

I'm feeling a bit better about the race.  It'll be okay if I don't finish...I'm going to do my best, but it won't be the end of the world.  Feeling less dire about it does make me feel better. 

Off to do another "long run" biking session at the gym!  Good thing no one really likes the recumbent  bikes that much that I can pretty much stay on it as long as I want :3