Acupuncture, 500+ miles, cross-country skiing, and more!

What a weekend! It's Sunday evening, I have some time and I have so much to share with you all. Where to begin. How about with my quotation for the day (I find this one very clever):

"The way we do anything, is the way we do everything" T Harv Eker

So Saturday, I went to the gym and I was feeling good. I signed up for Casey's virtual 10K on January 23rd! Yay Casey :) and I had just joined Robin's Pay it Forward 500 Mile Club and I was quite excited with the challenge. Yay Robin :)

My thigh was still sore, but it didn't seem worse after Friday's run, so I figured I'd go ahead and run instead of bike (I will stop predicting what I plan on doing the next day, because so far I'm 0 for 3). I'm running along and as I near 4K I'm thinking I could maybe go for 8K this morning (la dee da)...and then as I near 5K I feel little jabs of sharp pain in my "injured" thigh and think sh*&? I guess I have to stop. At this point, I'm satisfied with the 5K, but I'm not thrilled with the fact that I seem to have worsened my injury.

Fast forward to later in the day, we're at my sister's for dinner (we'll call her Cee) and I'm talking with my little sister (we'll call her Iz) and berating myself for pushing a little too hard today and worsening my injury. As I'm talking, my sister and I look at each other and we have the same thought. You see, Iz is a licensed acupuncturist (aka the miracle worker). Let me just mention here that Iz graduated in April and so, she had never treated me for any injuries before (considering I started running more regularly in September). You can imagine how curious and excited I was. 

First, she places the needles at specific points along the muscle, from the upper thigh (aka the butt) down to the foot (near the toes).

She then rotates the needles until I go "ouch" or "f*&%$#" depending on the degree of surprise, Iz prefers "f&%$#@" because that's when she knows it really worked. Before I go on, I only swore once, most of the time a little "aah" or "aah ee ooh" was all I said. Now, about how it works: She starts at the top of the leg and works her way down, stopping to rotate each needle. Iz explained that when she loosens the inflamed knot in the upper thigh, she then must help the Chi (pronounced chee) circulate all the way down my leg. She does this 3 or 4 times, until it's relatively painless when she does, which Iz says means that the knot has come undone. She then removes the needles and actually makes a small pinprick in the toe that was in line with the series of needles, to get a drop of blood and help the flow. Was the process painful? I'd be lying if I said not at all, but it was bearable. Was it worth it? Hell yeah!  Iz says it can take up to 24 hours before the healing process is complete. I was shocked to realize that as I went up the stairs after my treatment, I felt no pull in my thigh. 24 hours later, my thigh definitely feels better and although I still feel as though I have a mild bruise on my thigh (not from the needles, but where the actual injury is/was :)), I feel NO pain going up and down stairs (which is where I felt it the most). The way I see it, acupuncture seems to speed the healing process.

Still, I didn't run today, I didn't want to push my luck.

BUT, we went cross-country skiing behind our house. We are lucky enough to have a farmer's field in our backyard.

I was diligent with the stretching both before and after skiing.

I felt good. No pain where I received my acupuncture treatment. But, I did have a little pull in the groin (it wasn't hurting on Saturday, so I forgot to mention it to Iz...oops).

It was -9°C/15.8°F, but with the windchill factor, it was -17°C/1°F

With the right clothes (and I'm not new to cross-country skiing so I know how to dress), it was beautiful and I felt good after, only a slight lingering pain in the groin (very litty itty bitty pain)!

I then spent Sunday afternoon preparing meals that I could eat for lunch (I am so sick of always eating the same things for lunch). I always eat at home, because my office is only 1K from home. So, I decided to make a few easy to fix lunches (butternut squash soup and chicken for sandwiches).

Not that you don't know what butternut squash soup looks like, but you don't know what MY butternut squash soup looks like! Delicious :)

Oh yeah. I wanted to mention that as I was transfering the vegetables into the blender, something broke and I got some boiling broth on my hand...ouch! The first thought that crossed my mind was, "Thank goodness I don't run on my hands" (did you say addicted)!

That's it for today...hope you had a great weekend.

Cheers!