Stepping Up My Game

I had another great week!  I hope you guys don't start to get bored with my updates.  I hope they inspire you so that you keep pushing and moving forward.  I started this blog with the intention of turning it into a positive recovery story, so that anyone suffering a Lisfranc injury has hope, and a light at the end of the tunnel that it will eventually be over, and eventually be just a memory.  My injury ended up being on the severe side of things, so yes, there are things that I will never be able to do again (at least, they aren't recommended if I don't want another surgery in 2 years, so yep, taking the doctor's advice), but there are plenty of things that you still CAN do.

I was hoping that this feeling of encouragement and happiness about recovery would have come maybe a few months ago and I really didn't expect the injury to take this long to heal.  Patience is the key and you just have to have it.

So what did I do this week that has me so excited?  Another hike!  I increased my distance and elevation gain with this one, last week's was more of just a baseline on where I was.  Last week's hike was about 2 miles round trip, 0.75 each way and then some tooling around the reservoir, with overall about 450 ft. of elevation gain.  On Friday, I had the day off work and we celebrated my hubby's birthday by going on a hike that was a little more challenging than last week's.

This hike was located in Millcreek Canyon,  on a trail called Rattlesnake Gulch (I'm in Utah, not Colorado) and led to a beautiful overlook of the Salt Lake Valley.  It almost double the distance of last week's adventure, 3.4 miles roundtrip with about 750 ft of elevation gain.  My foot held up so great.  I actually didn't have much pain at all during the entire hike, and it started to get kind of sore about a third of the way back down the trail.  I did have to kind of think about my foot in general though, since the trail was super rocky.  I was conscious of every step, where I was putting my feet, and my weight on each foot.  I was trying not to put too much weight on the right foot, especially on the steep parts.  I tried to lead with my right foot as much as possible so that I wasn't pushing off too much on it.  I let my left foot be the back foot to push myself up the hills.

The rocks really tested my balance and I was grateful for my trekking poles.  There was one section that was almost all rocks, and I tweaked my ankle just a bit.  My foot is seriously not used to this type of activity and this is helping to work on stability.  As anxious as I might be for pushing the foot, I am seeing huge leaps of progress the more active I am.  

I also found out that my cardio totally sucks.  Definitely need to work on that aspect!  During the steepest part of the hike my heart rate got up to 203, according to my Polar Heart Rate Monitor.  I didn't die though.  Overall, it took me about 1hr 50 min to do the hike, exactly on point with the average hiker pace for the Wasatch Mountain Club.  (Slow clap?)  I honestly don't care about pace or speed.   Maybe next year that can be a goal.  Right now it is just about completing the hikes!  I burned about 1300 calories on the hike which had me feeling awesome afterwards.  And yes, we treated ourselves to a birthday dinner at Ruth's Chris later in the evening.

Pics!

Going up the trail (this was the non-rocky part :) )

At the top - if you zoom in you can see the Salt Lake downtown skyline!

Looking west to the other side of the valley; Oquirrh Mountains in the distance

Looking down at Salt Lake Valley.  The abandoned pipeline is in view, which Google tells me used to power parts of the valley years ago!

The next day, my legs were for sure sore, especially my calves and quads.  Most importantly, my foot was only mildly sore.  Compared to last week's 2 mile hike, and this week's 3.4, it definitely felt more sore this week than last week.  But not really enough to bother me much.  I some gardening that Saturday and we hung another bird feeder, ran errands, and did some shopping, so I still was able to be on my feet and fairly active throughout the day!  There was one point where we had gone to pick up some flowers for the garden at our favorite nursery, and the hubby told me that I was WALKING TOO FAST for him.  What!  (In his defense, I had a pair of tennis shoes on, and he had flip flops, but still)

As I think about it, maybe a year ago if I had gone on this hike pre-injury, I might have noticed the pain or the differences in my two feet.  Maybe it would have bothered me.  Other than getting used to how to hike all over again, I am so pleased with how my foot held up.  I wasn't bothered.  A little sore, but not bothered.  Considering all the time, surgeries and trauma my foot has been through, this was exciting.  This is my new normal now.

And I'm fine with that!