I’ve been feeling pretty schlumpy these last few weeks. I am afraid that I am on the road to Burnoutville. It’s a long journey, and the traffic is kind of jammed up, but I am close to throwing myself out of the car because I really don’t want to end up in Burnoutville.
I can pretty much pinpoint when the crappy feeling started. It began when I had to ease up on the walking and cancel my daily dose of treadmill time. Thankfully my FitBit has been tracking my steps all along so I can illustrate this post with a graph:
You can click the image to enlarge but you can probably see what’s happening at the end there? That’s me, not walking.
A few weeks ago I started to get shooting pains in my heel. I asked Dr. Google and learned all Plantar Fasciitis. I have yet to receive an official diagnosis but there it is. (Sidebar: Hi Mom! I know you’ve sent me lots of articles about how my pedometer is going to kill me some day. I guess we’re here now!)
I haven’t been this inactive for a long time and I am definitely feeling it. Did I feel this lousy beforehand? I’ve been grumpy and twitchy, touchy and weepy (ha – sounds like I’ve just named a few more dwarves there) and eating a record amount of toast, so let’s add jiggly to that list.
Before my heel started hurting I’d spend a solid 30 minutes walking on the treadmill every morning. This is how I always started the day, every day. It became a habit, one that helped me in many ways despite the decidedly unglamorous set up I have. The treadmill belonged to my in-laws, who gave it to us because they weren’t using it. It’s in the corner of our unfinished basement. It’s kind of dark down there and there is no view (unless you count stacks of cardboard boxes with a Canada flag hanging in front of them). When I first started I had to trick myself into using it every morning. I’d put on my gym clothes as soon as I rolled out of bed and told myself that I wasn’t allowed to check Facebook unless I did a minimum of twenty minutes. It worked. And it became easier. I got myself a FitBit and tracked my steps; competing with myself and with friends online. I was consistently able to hit my daily goal of 10K and it felt great. It wasn’t strenuous exercise. I’ve done intervals and I’ve run on the treadmill here and there, but I discovered that a brisk walk was easier on my body and still made me feel good.
I haven’t been able to reach that magic number for a few weeks now thanks to my bum heel. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much, but I’m still trying to stay off of it. Apparently it takes months for Plantar Fasciitis to heal. I didn’t realize how much I missed my “treadmill time” and exactly how much I needed it, until now.
