New Shoes and a 20 Mile Run!

For the last week and a half, I have been seeing Dr. Zimmerman, at Zimmerman Family Wellness in Cornelius, NC. We have been trying to figure out why my left leg always gets injured. I have been going to appointments every couple days and he gives me adjustments from my head down to my toes. He thinks that one reason is that my left foot does not have enough dorsal bend and he is working to correct that. This would lead to my calvese becoming tight from running. Since I have been seeing him, my leg has not hurt, so I am pretty happy with that! Last week I was able to run twice, 4 miles each time. This week I was able to run 4 days and I even got in my 20 mile run today! If I was not able to get that in, I would have been very nervous about getting through the NYC Marathon.

I went to Try Sports on Friday and got fitted (for the first time ever,) for new running shoes. Jinnie Austin fitted me, and I was VERY impressed with the detail they take in their fittings. She started with going over how much I run, my current shoes I run in, how long I have been running in them, and my goals. She then had me stand on a machine that measured my feet and my arches, then she put me on the treadmill to video my running form and analyze it. The next steps were to try a few different running shoes and walk around in them to see how they feel. I liked the feel of the Mizuno Inspires the most, they felt very light weight and a wide toe, which I need. I then ran on the treadmill with these shoes and she again analyzed my pronation and form with the shoes.

Jinnie pointed out one thing that I think is brilliant, and I am surprised that no doctor, or anyone has ever talked about this with me before. She pointed out that since I am in sales and am in my car, driving most of the day, that my left leg may be weaker because of this. Thinking about it, it makes total sense. When I drove home I paid attention to my left leg. The right leg is always engaged since it is the leg pushing the gas and brakes. My left leg always just flops over to the side in a comfortable position. It is never upright. I tried to keep it upright on the way home, and it was something I had to concentrate on, and not so easy. Jinnie did recommend to put a yoga block in between my left leg and the door, and I definitely plan to do this moving forward. I can't believe how much sense this makes, and how I have never thought of this before!

The Mizuno shoes correct my over pronation on my left leg, which was more than my right leg. Hopefully this will help. It also doesn't hurt that these shoes are pretty!

As for my run today, it went great! Chris got up at 5am to run a couple miles with me before I met Lauren Tilton, Siobhan Havlik and Holly John. Lauren and Holly are also running the NYC marathon this year. We were able to get in a little over eight easy miles in mostly complete dark! We picked up our chips for the Lung Strong 15k and then I met up with Emily Barrett and Jessica Bilbrey to run the 15k at an easy pace.

I am happy to say that my leg never experienced any pain! As soon as I stopped across the finish line, I got very tight and am pretty sore, but that is expected since this is only my 2nd 20 mile run, EVER. The last was two years ago. So I am happy and optimistic for the NYC marathon!

Productive Weekend!

Everyday and weekend has been a blur lately with all our housework we have had going on. We had another fun-filled weekend of productivity! Luckily, I got my long run of 18 miles out of the way on Thursday morning. Chris and I got up at 5am and he ran 7 miles with me before my friends Amy and Lisa met me for a ten mile run. Then Amy and I continued on for one mile. The weather was perfect and the company could not be beat!

Friday night Chris and I tried to just relax a bit, we had a couple beers at the house and got in our newly emptied, cleaned and filled up-hot tub! It is so nice and peaceful in our backyard. It is so quiet and the backyard lights give it just the right touch. Check out the tranquility...

We got up early on Saturday morning for the Isabella Santos Foundation's 5k for Kid's Cancer.
Chris and I have been raising money for the ISF, we will be running in memory is Isabella, a local girl who passed away recently from a childhood cancer, neuroblastoma. You can check out our fundraising page here. Thank you to everyone who has given, each and every donation means so much, and is so greatly appreciated! Chris won the 5k and set the course record with a time of 16:27. I placed 2nd in my age group with a time of 23:00. I could not tell you if this is a personal best for me, since I very rarely run in 5k's. It was a great event, it was fun seeing everyone from TrySports out there as well! Chris won a free class party at Fly Wheel Charlotte. Stay tuned for the date he chooses, we will use this as another way to raise money for the ISF!

Now, onto our house projects. We have been back and forth to our old townhome, and have almost totally gotten everything out, and cleaned up the place. One more trip. I finally have all my clothes here and can't wait to start organizing my new closet. Ladies, this closet is phenomenol, I hope I can leave some room for Chris...

Today, Sunday, Chris's mom came over to help us paint (it is neverending!) She got to work in our master bathroom. This is a very difficult room to paint, there is also a separate toilet room in the bathroom. The finished product is great, we picked out the color selection from seeing a picture of one of the rooms in Rob and Joy Dietz's house. We love it! Chris also replaced the old gold lighting with a new silver one, picked at the Habitat Restore for just $5 (lightbulbs included!) We are slowing changing all of the gold in the house to silver. Chris hung Levolor wooden plantation blinds above the tub as well.

I had the pleasure of painting the dining room ceiling. This was no fun. I do not think I will ever paint a ceiling again. I did not originally plan on this, but since there was so much blue paint on the ceiling, I wanted to touch it up. I went to Lowes and tried matching the ceiling color up with a new paint, but it was too difficult to match the right color. So, I just decided to paint it all. Phew. I will not do that again, but now it is done.

Last, but not least, one of the new joys of home ownership is trying to figure out why a slug keeps appearing in our dishwasher. I have never heard of this happening to anyone, but it is gross. Twice in three days this has now happened. Yesterday, I ran my dishwasher twice with bleach. Then I ran it again with dishwasher detergent. This morning, no slug. I then put a bowl of beer in the bottom, since slugs are attracted to beer, for some reason. I keep checking, and no slugs have been back. Tonight will be the true test.

I will keep this posted with our new projects, there are many more on our list. Two more bedrooms to paint, more boxes to unpack than we can count, pictures to hang, cleaning to be done, the list goes on!

Loving our new house and neighborhood though, I think we found our perfect spot :)