Back at it! Did you miss me?

[caption id="attachment_1568" align="alignright" width="300"] Thanks for all the help Joe![/caption]

So, I have been quite quiet as of late!    The good news is that it isn't due to any unforseen disaster with my Mother in law's heart surgery.  She is doing AWESOME!  They kicked her out of the hospital earlier than planned, as she was doing so well!  She was glad to be home early - that is for sure!  My brother-in-law Joe stayed up there with her to help take care of her.  We headed up every night with food and to visit.

Friday we brought Joe down to the Philadelphia Airport so he could fly home to Texas after being away from his wife and kids for so long. His coming up certainly made life easier on my wife and I (thanks Joe!)

My wife in front of IKEA

Saturday we headed back from Philly, with a stop over in Ikea.  Ok, neither my wife or I had ever been in an Ikea. THAT IS THE COOLEST STORE EVER!  Seriously.  We are in love.  Two hours later we left, and we skipped some parts of the store!

But after picking up the kids and headed home - we had some WONDERFUL birthday cake that my mother made me! (Yes, I'm 37 years old, and my mother still makes me a birthday cake. Lets face it - you're jealous.)  Her German Chocolate Cakeis INCREDIBLE!

[caption id="attachment_1570" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Best German Chocolate Cake EVER![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1567" align="alignright" width="225"] KT Tape - Didn't help as much as I had hoped.[/caption]

So with all of this - you can see that my "getting back on the bandwagon" last week - didn't happen.  (I suspect the complete lack of postings gave that away!)   Despite the long break of running/exercising - my foot does still hurt.

I have tried several different things with mixed results of "Feeling better" and "OMG that HURTS!!!"  I had great luck with the KT Tape last year - so it seemed like an obvious thing to try for the Plantar Faciitis.  Now, I can't say for sure that it is responsible - but my foot hurt more at the end of THAT day than it has since the first week!  I also hadn't worn my Night-Brace the night before - so I'm sure that contributed as well.  In fact, its soreness from that was the reason I decided to wear the KT Tape, hoping it would help.

The night brace has been helping - I can definitely feel the difference in the morning when I don't wear it.  It does squish my toes a little.  The Stick and the FootLog are still the best items toward pain-relief and overall comfort!  I have set up my Galaxy Nexus to give me reminders twice during the day so that I am reminded to stretch my calf and Plantar Facia - as I wasn't doing to hot on my own!  I also bought some inserts for my shoes made by Dr. Scholls for people suffering Plantar Faciitis, which seem to be helping the daily pain.  I have also given up on using my VFFs until I am healed.  This has helped my knee pain return (sigh).

Now that we are all caught up on that - since this is a running blog, I'm sure I should talk about the running I have done!  The answer is - None.  BUT, I did start INSANITY back up.  After the extended time of not doing anything I decided to start over, so last night I did the Cardio Power and Fitness in the place of the Fitness test as Day 1.  I am a little sore today, but not too bad.  We are headed back down to Philly tonight (my son has a big Chorus thing going on) - but I am going to do the Plyometric Cardio Circuit tonight before we head out.  I'm not sure I will be able to manage a workout on thursday - Weds, but I am going to try! I have the INSANITY on my tablet - in case I can manage to work it in.

I have also decided it is time to start running again. If my foot is just going to hurt regardless, It might as well hurt while I run.   If I don't start running, I might soon kill one of my co-workers.