Only temporarily, I hope.
I mentioned in my last post that I was going to have to be off my feet for a while. Don't worry, nothing horrible happened to me -- I just hurt myself. I had been noticing a bit of discomfort around the ankle and top of my left foot for the last couple of weeks, but it was more annoying than painful. Well, this past Saturday, I ran in a 5K cross-country race at a
local camp. The good news is that I placed first in my age group in 29:40, was the second female finisher, and finished about 2 minutes faster than last summer. However, the course was really rough (3.1 miles over very rutty cow pasture and wooded trails) and after the race, I could barely walk on my left foot. I spent most of the rest of the weekend with my foot on ice, then went to my podiatrist on Monday morning. I was really concerned that I had fractured a bone in my foot, but was elated to learn I only strained the muscle. The doctor taped my foot and told me to take ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation. While I am not yet back to running, I am almost walking without a limp now, and it's only been 5 days. Yay!
Because I still haven't given up on running a half marathon this fall, I'm trying to make up for the runs I've been missing by doing cross-training activities. So far this week, I've cycled on a stationary bike twice, and plan to hit the pool on Saturday for my first attempt at pool running. Basically, you put on a flotation belt, jump in the water, and start running in place (feet not touching bottom). I'm shooting for about 80 minutes -- about the same amount of time it would take me to run the 8 miles I had planned to run on Saturday. It may be harder than it sounds though, and I'll probably look ridiculous doing it. Oh, well. We'll see how it goes!
Then, stick out my tongue at Mom, for good luck.
Okay, here I go . . .
Almost there . . .
I reached the summit! I am the King of the World!
Now for my oh-so-graceful descent:
I'm so proud of myself!
Mountain climbing makes me so hungry, I could eat the table!
Dane made a new friend! Have I mentioned he loves dogs?
Kyle was kind enough to flash a smile for me. Isn't he adorable?
Dane? Not so much. He digs right in:
Hi, my name is Ava, and I'm a thumb-oholic:
Think they need a 12-step program?
The Scheer family. Left to right: Allen, Wendy holding Dane, Grandma Bev holding Ava, Charlie holding Kyle, and Paw-Paw Wayne.
Baby Kyle sleeping soundly in Grandma's arms:
Ava and Dane played in the nursery area while the rest of us ate lunch. It was nice to eat in peace for a change! 
