After a visit to the wrong office, don’t ask, I finally managed to get to see the doctor. The official diagnosis for my ankle pain is “Retrocalcaneal bursitis” which this web site does much better job describing then I would be able to do so you can read it for all the details.

I have to take two weeks off running, which by the time I go back to the doctor will actually be three weeks since I’ve already taken this week off, and he prescribed some anti-inflammatory medication. I also had to go and get some special heel insoles for my shoes that I’m supposed to wear all the time. In two weeks I go back and he is going to take a look and see how things are progressing.

I’m not sure what this is going to do for the half marathon but I figure three weeks off isn’t going to be the end of it. Once I start back running I’ll see how it feels before deciding what to do about the race.

For those paying attention last weeks Half Marathon Training update was also title “9 Weeks to Go”. Apparently I’m an idiot and have problems reading a calendar but this week is actually 9 weeks to go until April 2nd. (I did mention this in my first training update with 10/11 weeks to go but no one corrected me so you all can share the blame.)

Anyway, the week was good and bad depending on how you look at it. I ran 6 and a half miles on Wednesday morning and it went pretty well. I took it easy compared to how I normally go and still managed to average about 7:50 per mile. Monday and Thursday morning I swam and Thursday’s swim was particular a really good workout. I took Friday and Saturday off and on Sunday I went out for a nice long easy 8 mile run. I didn’t set out planning to go 8 miles it just kind of happened. I picked my route out and I was feeling so good that I decided to just keep going. It was one of those runs where it just feel effortless and I hit my stride really early on.

Now for the bad part. My heel has been bothering me on and off for a while but after that long Sunday run it went from just being a low grade nuisance to I can barely walk. It got progressively got worse all day on Sunday and Monday I was kind of hobbling along. It got bad enough that I’ve made an appointment with an orthopedic specialist on Friday to see if there isn’t something else going on. Hopefully it’s nothing and I’ll be back running again soon but until I see him I’m going to stop running and just swim.

I was putting Alex down to the bed last night and he said to me,

“Dad, what are we going to play tomorrow?”

Well tomorrows a Satruday and I work on a Saturday so I said,

“Well son, I have to go to work tomorrow”

“Oh, Ok, just don’t forget your lunch box then.”

Yikes, even Alex knows how often I forget my stuff. And, yes, I did remember to bring my lunch today.

I’m a little late on last weeks training update but that’s just about how the running went.  The plan at the start of the week was to swim on Monday and Thursday and run on Wednesday and either Saturday or Sunday  Well my Wednesday running didn’t go quite as planned.  After getting to work on Wednesday I was unloading my stuff from the car and realized I had forgot my running shoes.  I have no brain at five am so this happens at a couple times a month.  (I’ll only say a couple to be generous to myself.)  It’s either some critical piece of workout equipment like shoes or running gloves on days when it’s 36 degrees or most commonly, it’s lunch.  I’ve lost track of the number of times Jen has called me on her way to work “Do you want me to stop by and bring you your lunch.”

It wasn’t a complete waste because I did have my swimming stuff with me so I ended up swimming instead which meant I got in three swims last week instead of two.  I was feeling pretty good in the water so that was a plus.  I only managed one run and I had to go to the club and do it on the treadmill since it was raining.  Go figure, we haven’t had a drop of rain in this state for about two months and on my only running day it’s pouring. I never seem to be able to run quite as fast on a treadmill as I do just running outside but I got in 6 miles at just under and 8:20 pace.

This weeks running is starting out a little better.  Same plan as last week but I didn’t forget my shoes this morning.

Jen and Alex went out this afternoon to look in the antique stores and Alex hit the mother load. He found a Fisher Price Bobsled.

What are the odds of that eh?

The last couple of weekends Jen has found Bobsledding on TV and it turns out that Alex is a big fan. I’m not sure what sparked his initial interest but he is really excited about watching the sport. As an aside, I always called the sport was called Bobsledding but it seems that the governing body of the sport, Federation Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobaganning, uses Bobsleigh. It doesn’t really sound right to me though.

Anyway, at the start of the broadcast they were showing the Skeleton and then they went into Bobsledding and Alex was all excited and wanted Jen to build him his own Bobsled. Jen got some used diaper boxes and fashioned a pretty good Bobsled if you ask me. Alex would push his sled with the contestants and then hop in and drive down the course. He even wanted a helmet just like the guys on TV.

	This side of his sled had a USA sign and the other side had a Canada sign. On the front there is a “#1 Alex” sign.

Today we also gave Andrew his first finger food as well some Gerber Zwieback. In these pictures he looks a lot more excited then Alex did the first time we tried “real” food with him but he was still a little suspicious of what we were giving him. He seemed to enjoy it and kept munching at it but he didn’t quite have the hang of the hole chewing thing down yet. (I guess that’s to be expected since this was his first piece of food that needed chewing.)

Update: Just in case anyone was worried, we haven’t yet abonded the Polar Express in favour of Bobsled. We are currently halfway through the movie now.

We had another really nice spring day again today so I took the chance to play with the camera and take a couple of pictures of the boys playing outside. I also got a couple of really good ones of Andrew playing in the house this morning. You can find them all here.

Auntie D and Uncle Doug’s Christmas package arrived just over a week ago and the gift that topped the list of greatness for Alex was “The Polar Express” movie. Since that time he has watched the movie every single day and one of the days using his super human three year old powers of persuasion he manged to convince us to let him watch it twice. Not only has he watched the movie every day on the majority of those days he has
also watched the special features on the making of the movie or played the Polar Express Challenge game.

When he finished watching the movie yesterday Jen had finally had enough and said “That’s it. No more Polar Express, turn off the TV. Lets go find something else to do like read a book or a game to play.” Alex figured he could handle reading a book as an acceptable substitute and headed off to find one. He returned a while later not having found anything he really wanted so Jen offered to go look with him.

“What book are you looking for” Jen asked.

“The Polar Express!”

Race Day: 10 weeks from now.  April 2nd 2006.

This week I should have done three runs but I only managed two.  I figure that it’s not too big a deal yet since the longest run was supposed to be 4 miles according to the training schedule but I did a long run of 6.6 miles last Wednesday morning and one that was slightly more then 4 on Saturday.  I figure I went a total of just less then 11 miles this week.  Both of the runs were pretty fast too.  On the 6.6 mile loop I was running just under 7:40 per mile and on the Saturday run I figure I was around 7:50 to 7:55.

On my two non-running days last week I got in the pool and managed to get some good swimming in.  This week I won’t be able to slack off on the running since I really need to get in three runs this week.

I’ve started this week off strong and swam 4600 yards this morning.  Feeling good, if not a little tired at the moment.

I’ve posted a couple of pictures we took last weekend of our trip to the park. We had some really warm weather so we picked up some Popeye’s chicken, had ourself a picnic, and let the kids play outside. In fact it was so warm that we were able to wear shorts and a t-shirt. It’s not that warm this weekend so good thing we took advantage of it while we did.