So if you read Fitness Magazine, you may have seen a familiar face pop up in the September edition.



I was interviewed as part of an article on the cost of fitness. It's actually a really interesting piece that looks at how much women across the country spend on health and fitness-related costs each month.

If you've got a minute, it's a pretty cool read and you should check it out.

Oh and a big thanks to Megan for taking the picture they used and for my friend Zac for loaning me the baseball bat I'm posing with.

Well my doctors and I finally have official proof that my foot is in fact broken.

Although the break didn't show up on the initial X-ray or MRI, it was clear as day on the CT scan. According to the radiologist's report, I have a nondisplaced fracture on my fourth metatarsal. In plain English, that means I have a stress fracture on the 4th toe in my left foot. And apparently it just doesn't want to heal.


The original X-ray that showed no break


Questionable MRI that told us not much

So what does that mean in terms of recovery, rehab and actually getting back to doing anything athletic?

There's good and bad news here.



Now that we know what it is we can start to treat it. My doctor anticipates it will be four more weeks before I can be back to running normally again. On the one hand, that breaks my heart. Four more weeks of no running seems like torture. By the time it's all said and done, that will be more than three months of no running or CrossFit.

On the other hand, it's comforting to know that I have a timeline now. That I have a deadline to count down to when I can start taking my first running baby steps again.

In the meantime though, the doctor had a few ideas to speed recovery and get me back to running a little bit sooner.

Step one was ordering me a bone stimulator. This is a device that fires either electric or ultrasonic waves into the bone to stimulate cell regrowth and generation to speed healing. I have a meeting on Thursday to learn how to use it, and I'm really hoping it works and helps get me back on my feet faster.

The second thing I'm going to be doing is some physical therapy to rebuild all the muscles in my feet and legs that have been wasting away all summer. In about ten days, my doctor wants me to start running on the AlterG machine at their office. The machine lets you run at a fraction of your body weight, so that you can start to build up some of the muscle conditioning without the pounding of running at your full body weight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=21PIgBDiXQQ&noredirect=1#t=37

When I got the news yesterday, I'm fairly certain I cycled through the five stages of grief in rapid time and in no apparent order. I was reluctantly accepting at first, figuring there wasn't much I could do.

Then I was furious that I was going to need even more time off from running, followed by being heartbroken that my foot wasn't healing, that I was still laid up and that I wasn't getting better faster.

I did the whole bargaining thing. "Oh foot, if you heal fast enough that I can run my race, I will promise to take better care of you and will be extra vigilant about taking my calcium and vitamin D supplements."

I think I hit denial last, just refusing to believe this is really happening.

I've been bouncing back and forth between all the emotions all morning and at any given moment I could be really annoyed or really bummed or just really OK with things. Emotional instability at its finest people.

So for now, I'm going to try to enjoy the fact that I have a plan of attack. I operate better with a plan. And I'm just going to try to take it one day at a time and get through the next four weeks so that I can get back to regular activity as soon as possible.

Why is it that summer weekends fly by so fast, and that summer in general this year has flown by? I can't believe Labor Day weekend is right around the corner, which means college football season and tailgate season is practically here.

Starting this week, I'll be back to spending my Saturdays in College Park with my tailgate crew to watch Terps football.

Knowing this was my last real "summer" weekend, I did my best to squeeze the most out of it.

Emily and I headed out to Jiffy Lube Live on Saturday night for the Kip Moore and Toby Keith concert. I had never seen either of them live, but I really love Kip Moore's music so I was looking forward to the show.



Moore's set was awesome. Toby Keith's was ridiculously over the top. No kidding when he sang Red Solo Cup, he had two inflatable solo cups pop up on both sides of the stage and animated red solo cups danced on the video board behind him.



Can't even make this stuff up.

Still the show was a blast all the way around and made it rather hard to wake up early for softball on Sunday.





But having the early morning games worked out well. It was a gorgeous morning, and by the time the sun came out and the weather really warmed up, Sarah and I were camped out by the pool with our noses stuck in our books.

It was pretty much the perfect way to kick off what will surely be an epic birthday week.

And today's the day I had back to the doctor to get the results of the CT scan on my foot. Here's hoping this actually shows something, and the doctor can make a decision about what we're going to do about getting my foot to heal.

Before we get into today's post about my first swim workout, I want to welcome to the world my new baby cousin Landon!



Landon was born yesterday at 10:44 a.m., a healthy 8 pounds, 14 ounces to my cousins Tony and Sarah. Fun fact, Landon and I have birthdays exactly a week apart! Besides being pretty adorable, he's also the first great-grandchild on my mom's side of the family, so I'm sure he's going to get spoiled rotten for the next many, many years.

In fact, I'm taking the spoiling role very seriously, and bought him a pretty awesome birthday present (or at least I think so).

The little guy arrived just in time for football season, so obviously he had to have the appropriate attire for game day.



Tony and Sarah, this will be on its way to you very shortly!

In workout news, yesterday was the first time in a long time that I got in a pool to swim laps, and holy crap am I out of swimming shape.



I swam for about 30 minutes, and I was sucking some serious wind afterward.

I did roughly 800-1,000 yards in 30 minutes or so. I have a rough estimation of how far I went because coach Zach used MapMyRun on satellite mode to measure the distance of the rooftop pool. That kid is resourceful!

It's hardly a scientific measurement, but it came out to about 20 yards, and I started counting how many lengths I swam at some point during the workout to give myself some idea of how far I was going.

Yesterday was a pretty gorgeous day. There's just something about swimming laps outside that makes it so much more enjoyable than being at an indoor lap pool.


Open water swimming FTW

I snuck upstairs on my lunch break, hoping not too many people would be around on a random Wednesday afternoon, and I got lucky and had the pool to myself for most of the workout. It was just me and the water and a few people reading their books on the deck, until about 25 minutes in when two little girls hopped in.

I think I scared them though and then stayed as far from me as possible on one side of the pool. I had only had about five more minutes of swimming left at that point though and so they were soon able to have the entire pool to themselves.

I don't have many more days left until the pool closes for the season (I'm fairly certain they shut it down after Labor Day weekend, which is sad), but on the days I work from home I plan to take advantage of it and get some outdoor lap swimming in.

It will be good to shake the cob webs off my swimming form before I start paying money for the real pool.

I'd be lying if I said the pool on the roof of my building had no impact on my decision to move in here. But until I moved in, I didn't realize just how great it would be.

Some of the reasons are pretty obvious -- like how I can work from up there on my telework days and how I can come home from work and just lounge around and dive into a good book.



But the pool is also pretty great for, well, swimming.

Now granted, it's not a lap pool by any means, and it's actually not even in a straight line. It curves and bends at one section, and there are usually at least a few other people in it.

But, all of that makes for really good triathlon swimming practice.

I mean, you have to sight where you're going, and swim around other people like you would in open water. And there's no lane line in this pool, just like there's not any in a lake/river/ocean.

So why do I care about mirroring tri-swim conditions?

Welllll, all this cross training I've been forced to do because of my foot injury has actually gotten me kind of excited about the possibility of doing another triathlon. (I can hear coach Zach cheering all the way from South Carolina.)



I mean I still can't run, which is obviously an important part of a triathlon, but I figure if I keep working on the swimming and the biking, by the time I can get back to running again, I might be able to tackle a sprint distance tri.



And for whatever reason, I really, really want to try a tri with an ocean swim. I have no idea why. Swimming in the ocean scares the crap out me. Hello...sharks!

But the whole time I was at the beach in July, I kept being envious of all the people out in the ocean doing their swim workouts.


Swimming in the Bay...the closest I ever got to an ocean swim

I overheard more than a few people talk about upcoming beach tris they were training for, and I was like, man, I really, really want to swim, bike, run at the beach.

Now I'm well aware I probably won't be able to work a beach tri into my schedule this year. Most of my fall weekends are booked with Terps football and who knows when I will actually be able to run again.

But come spring and summer, I'm planning to keep my eyes open. I'm eying some of the ones at the Delaware beaches. Until then, I may try to find something small around here and later in the season, even if it only has a pool swim.

Just need my foot to hurry up and heal.

While I'm stuck doing nonimpact stuff until my foot heals, I've become BFFs with the bike trainer.



And by BFF's, I mean I have somehow learned to tolerate it and force myself to use it most days of the week so I can maintain some level of fitness.

We all know biking is far from my favorite way to work out, but I'm trying to make the best of it.

Still, just like running on a treadmill, biking on a trainer comes with its fair share of boredom, so lately I've developed some things to keep me entertained while I work out.

First, I have to have a set workout. Just like I can't get in the pool without a workout planned out in advance, I can't just get on the trainer and spin for 30 minutes and call it a day. That makes time drag.

So I've been hitting up FrayedLaces' Trainer Tuesday archives for workout ideas. She does a great job of mixing in sprint intervals with high tension "climbs" to add enough variety to the workout to make it entertaining. Somehow when I follow most of her workouts, an hour of trainer time doesn't seem that awful.

Another thing that helps is watching TV while I ride. Last week I did a killer 60 minute spin session while watching Shark Week.



The show that is keeping me most entertained on the trainer these days is my new favorite obsession -- Orange is the New Black. I've tried watching other shows while I spin, but they've never been able to hold my attention while I'm grinding out a sprint. But Orange is the New Black is so good that I can't stop watching.

I've been trying to only let myself watch the show while I ride, almost like watching is my reward for getting on the trainer. It seems to be working. Whenever I think about watching the next episode, I find myself not hating the thought of getting on the trainer.

My foot seems to be doing a bit better and I'm really hopeful that I'll be able to start running within the next two weeks. I miss it and I'm itching to get back.


Garmin and running shoes I miss you!

So tell me, how do you entertain yourself on trainer rides? And do you watch Orange is the New Black?

I finally feel like I'm settling in to my new apartment. I'm still missing lots of furniture, but I plan to spend a large part of my Saturday furnishing and decorating the new place.

Plus, I'm taking full advantage of the rooftop pool.



Having my own space has been pretty amazing. It's so wonderful not to have to share a bathroom with someone else and try to coordinate who is showering when so we can all get to work on time. If I want to blast country music while I'm making dinner, I can, without worrying about bothering anyone.

And everything is so clean and organized, something that was sorely lacking in my last place.

I promise an official apartment tour once I get all my furniture.

In other news, we've had some absolutely gorgeous weather in the DC area the last two days. You'd think it was fall with the crisp mornings and complete lack of humidity.

Since I can't take advantage of the weather by running, last night, I hit the driving range with Jon and Sarah.



I haven't been to a driving range probably since I was like 14 or 15. My dad used to take my brother and I a bunch when we were growing up. I took lessons for a little while as a kid, and my family would play nine holes. I was never very good. I always struggled to hit the ball in the air, but I always had a good time at the driving range.

So it was nice to go back last night.



Jon's a pretty awesome golfer, so he was giving me pointers and I actually did really well for having not picked up a golf club in 10+ years.

It's a lot to remember though when you're lining up to take a shot. Every time I mentally ran through my form and checked everything, I would hit the ball really well. When I just tried to hit the ball without thinking, it went very poorly.





Can you tell by our outfits which one of us is not the golfer?

But it was a beautiful night to be outside, and hitting the driving range was really relaxing. We're definitely going to make plans to go back soon.

Happy Tuesday! Just a couple of quick updates today, so we're going numbers style for this post:

1. I moved over the weekend, just a few blocks from where I used to live before, but to a much nicer place, that also happens to have a pool on the roof.

So this was my view from the "office" yesterday.



Moving is a pain, but my parents, my cousin and my friend Jon all pitched in to help out, which made the process go much faster. I'm mostly unpacked. Now I'm just waiting for my sofa to be delivered so that my living room isn't totally empty,

2. My foot still hurts, but less than it did before, so I'm taking that as a good sign. Still, my doctor wanted me to get a CT scan to help confirm what the MRI showed, so I have an appointment to get that done this morning. Fingers crossed we get some answers and that this stupid thing starts to feel better.

3. I'm still following my doctors orders and cycling. Now that I'm done with the move, I'm hoping to get in to a more consistent workout routine because I've definitely been letting some workouts fall through the cracks since packing boxes seemed more urgent at the time.

That's it for today!

Today's a pretty sad day for me at the office. My very best office friend is leaving to go to law school, and today is her last day.


Me and Emily tailgating

I pretty much just want to curl up in a ball and cry because I'm going to miss her so much.

When Emily started three years ago, I didn't know she would become one of my closest friends.


Our first Terps tailgate

But in the last three years, she's become just that.

I will never forgot one time at happy hour back in the summer of 2011 -- it was one of our first times hanging out outside the office -- I said something like, "I'm glad we're real friends now."


That happy hour

We laughed about it at the time, because what were we before...fake friends? But we both got the sentiment.

Since that happy hour, Emily and I have hit up countless more happy hours, run a ton of races together, tailgated like there's no tomorrow and of course, made work as fun as possible.


Last year's MCM


Woodrow Wilson Half


Emily's first marathon


Spectating for Emily


Making our MCM shirts

My favorite days in the office were always Monday or Tuesday mornings, when we'd catch up on the weekend and laugh about all the silly stuff that happened.

She was my partner in crime on a million work projects and kept me sane even in my most stressed out office moments.


In the White House

I know we'll still see each other a bunch when she's in law school (we're already registered for at least two races in the coming months), but I will miss seeing her face every day and having someone to laugh with at work.


At my 25th birthday party


More tailgate fun.


Hitching golf cart rides

I'm wishing her all the very best in law school. I know she's going to totally rock it.

In the cliche of all cliches, our loss is her law school's gain.



Good luck Em! I'll miss you, but you'll rock law school!!!

The following post is sponsored by FitFluential LLC on behalf of Polar.

For a large part of this summer, I've been sidelined from my normal workouts with my foot injury. I haven't run since June and it's only been in the last few weeks that I've been able to get back into some nonimpact workouts.

But now that my doctor and I put together a plan to help me still train for my half marathon in September while dealing with my stress fractures, I'm ready to get back to a normal workout routine, which of course means tracking all my workout data.

In the past, I've kept track of things like time, distance, average speed, etc., but with my new Polar RC3 GPS watch, I've been able to add tracking my heart rate to the mix.



I've always shied away from the whole heart rate thing because the idea of wearing a heart rate monitor strap around my chest didn't seem appealing. I was worried it would rub and chafe and just in general be uncomfortable during my workouts.

So I was a bit nervous to strap on the chest strap for the first time. But once it was on, I didn't even notice it was there. It sat just below my sports bra and didn't move once during the workout.



The strap sends heart rate data to the watch on your wrist that you can view in real time during your workout. So during interval sprints on the bike, I would see my heart rate jump into zone 4 and during recovery periods slowly fall back to zone 1 or 2.

The watch itself is pretty sleek by design, it's definitely not big and bulky, which is nice.



There are about a million different ways you can view your data. You can opt to see heart rate, total mileage, distance, time elapsed, etc.

I still haven't found a favorite screen that's become my go-to during workouts. I've scrolled through and tested a bunch and for a few the screen is just too crowded and I'm not sure what I'm looking at. I need to keep experimenting until I find the screen that quickly shows me the data I want to see.

My only real criticism of the watch is that it wasn't completely intuitive to figure out right out of the box. I hate having to read instruction manuals that come with any electronics. I want to be able to pull out my new toy and just start using it right away.

The RC3 definitely took me more time to learn and understand from the start, but Polar also helped by creating a nice instructional video that explained the basics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXjB75HFCk

Now that I'm up and running, the watch is easy to use, and I'm loving getting some heart rate data back during workouts.

If you're curious to try the RC3 GPS for yourself, Polar is graciously offering a 25 percent discount off the watch until Saturday, August 10th. To take advantage of the discount, simply enter the code "fitfluential" when you check out.

So while I'm waiting for my millions of stress fractures to heal, my doctor didn't want me sitting around twiddling my fingers and turning into a lazy, depressed beached whale.



As a distance runner and endurance junkie who has suffered several stress fractures herself, she knows how hard it is to be sidelined from the sport you love. She also knows how hard it can be for runners to be forced to cross train instead of going on runs.

We had a nice chat on Friday about how spinning or swimming just doesn't do it for us like running does. Let me tell you, it's really nice to have a doctor who gets exactly what you're going through.

So while I was in the office on Friday getting the results of my MRI, we devised a plan.

I'm registered to run a half marathon on September 14th. I thought for sure I'd have to scratch the race and take a DNS, but my doctor was determined to make sure I still run the race.

Since right now I'm limited to biking and swimming, she wants me to still follow my half marathon training plan in terms of time and distance, but swap those runs for cycle rides instead.



She said that would build the necessary cardiovascular fitness I would need to run the race, and that I should be healed in enough time to get in a few quality runs before race day.

Obviously, I won't be able to go into the race looking for a PR, but she thinks I should still be able to cross the finish line. At this point, I'll take it.

I have bigger fish to fry later in the fall and early spring in terms of races, and this September half was never meant to be anything more than a fun run with friends. So as long as I can complete the distance and cross the finish line, I'll be a happy girl.

In the meantime, I'll be spending lots and lots of time on the bike.



Must find my bike shorts, my tri shorts just aren't cutting it in terms of cushioning.

Friday afternoon, I got the results of my MRI, and turns out the MRI gave the doctors an idea of what might be wrong, but the results weren't completely conclusive, so they need to send me for a CT scan to confirm the findings.

And what are the findings you might ask?

Oh...well you know....just three to five stress fractures in my foot.



Cool.

I may be going back in a boot for another two to three weeks. I may not. My doc wants to wait until we have something more conclusive, and since I've been walking around in sneakers for the last 5+ weeks, she doesn't want to stick me in a boot unless she really has to.

Hopefully, I'll be able to schedule a CT scan soon and get some answers!

Yesterday morning I rolled up to the radiology center to have a whole lot of radiation blasted at my foot in attempt to figure out why it's been so slow to heal from my fall back in June.



I was a little nervous going in because on the phone the lady said I'd be going into the machine head first, and man those MRI machines are enough to freak out even the least claustrophobic people.



But much to my relief, when I got there, the technician had me lay on my stomach and slid me into the machine feet first, so my head and torso weren't actually in the MRI tube.

All I had to do was lay still for 30 minutes while the magnets did their thing.

It turns out though that it's really hard to lay still without feeling the need to flinch every few minutes. I was hoping to maybe grab some Zzzz's, but MRIs are really loud, and then I tried to distract myself with random daydreams, but man that didn't work either. I was antsy and kept wondering when the 30 minutes would be over.

Eventually, we wrapped up and the tech sent me off with a CD full of pictures of my foot, and a promise to have the report to my doc in 48 hours.



Of course the first thing I did when I got home was pop the CD in my computer to take a look at them. Not that I'd have the first clue what I was looking at, but I was still curious.

Unfortunately, the MRI program doesn't work on Macs (lame!) so I headed over to my friend's office at lunch to use his PC.

There were tons of pictures showing all different angles of my foot.

I kept trying to zero in on the outside left part of my foot to see if there was anything there. All I saw in one of them was part of my metatarsal looking a little weirdly discolored compared to the rest of the bone.



Maybe that's what's causing the problem, but I'll have to wait until my doctor's appointment on Friday to find out the real answer.

In other news, I did my first real workout yesterday afternoon since I got hurt. When I was at the doctor on Monday, he said if I wanted to be able to run my race in September, I needed to start putting in some time in the pool or on the bike (if it didn't hurt.)



With my schedule it can be tough to get to the pool, but luckily, I have very generous friends. Megan offered to loan me her bike trainer since it was just gathering dust in her closet.

So I dusted off my bike, which I haven't used since tri training more than a year ago, put some air in the tires and set her up on the trainer.

I followed one of Frayed Laces' Trainer Tuesday workouts, and put in a solid 60 pain-free minutes of spinning. Actually, I lied. The workout wasn't totally pain free. My butt hurt like crazy by the time I stopped riding. I forgot how long it takes me to adjust to bike seats, even when I wear super unflattering bike or tri shorts with some cushioning.


Never flattering

Man did it feel good to work out. I had missed those endorphins. And while cycling has never done it for me in the way that running or CrossFit has, at this point, it's better than nothing.