May 26, 2014

Happy Memorial Day!! I spent most of today recovering from our holiday camping trip. We got back late last night and besides cleaning/laundry, I didn’t do much else. Not because I didn’t want to have a killer workout, but because I couldn’t :-( I hurt my ankle while camping and I’ve decided to take this week off to let it heal completely so I can get back to my workouts without risking getting hurt again.

So let me take you back to last Thursday …..

May 22, 2014:

It was a long day. I didn’t get up for a bootycall. I went to the gym and did Bikini Cardio on the treadmill. I used it as my long run for the week because I knew I wouldn’t be able to do my usual long run on Sunday. It was a great sweat session. I didn’t have time after that to do anything else because I spent most of the day getting things ready for our camping trip. I didn’t have much time either because Gio also had his second round of playoffs. His team played an amazing game and beat the first place team to move on to the 3rd round :-) It was a great start to our vacation. But we still had lots to do before we left to go camping. After a late dinner, it took us a whole pack and load the car up. Ben and I had to take turns driving because I was too tired to make the whole drive to Sacramento. We had to stop there to pick up Ben’s dad who was joining us along with his dog, Reggie. We got to Sac at 1am on Friday….

May 23, 2014

I didn’t get to sleep in on Friday. We were up early to finish getting things we needed for our camping trip. We had to pick up a couple sleeping bags, lanterns and some food. Then we had to pack and load up Gene’s SUV. Our goal was to leave when Ben’s dad got back from his meeting. We left about an hour later than planned. It was a tight fit in the back with me, the boys, and Reggie but we made it work. Reggie was good about staying on the floor. It was a long ride to Hatcreek. The boys were excited and impatient.

We had lunch at KFC. I had the grilled chicken and corn. I didn’t eat the biscuit that came with the meal. I had pork jerky and cherries as snacks in the car. I didn’t do well with staying hydrated. I tend to stop drinking water when I don’t have easy access to a bathroom.
We got to camp an hour later than planned. It was great to see my grandpa. Ben and his dad set up the tents while I got the kitchen and food organized. Dinner was spaghetti w/ breadsticks from Trader Joes.
The weather was great. It was early enough in the season that we could still have a fire. The boys roasted marshmallows and after the clouds cleared, we had an amazing view of the night sky. The sky is so clear out there that it just sparkles at night with stars. It was a warm night when we went to bed but the temperature dropped early Saturday morning. I was glad I brought my warm leggings.

May 24, 2014

Saturday started off great. We got up and Ben helped me make breakfast – eggs/bacon/fruit. The boys headed out to fish and I stayed behind to clean up. When I was done, I headed out for a run. My legs felt great and the view of Mt. Lassen, the trees, and the creek made for an amazing run. I was looking forward to doing more runs in the forest during the weekend. When I was done I walked/jogged back along the trail I ran to try and catch up to the boys. I had seen them while I was running.

I found them and Gio showed me the little fish he had caught. It was too small to keep but it died when they tried to put it back into the water. The boys and I decided to run back to camp with Reggie. We were trying to beat Ben and his dad who had to go back to the SUV. Everything was fine until I rolled my ankle badly and fell. It wasn’t just a small fall, it was an epic face eating dirt fall. The boys had slowed down to walk, Ben and his dad were catching up, but I was keeping up with Reggie.
I don’t know what happened besides my ankle felt like it just collapsed on me and I fell hard. The funny thing is no one saw it happen. Everyone was far enough behind me to miss it. It hurt so bad and yes, I cried. I yelled for Ben and for anyone to help but they were too far away to hear. I pulled myself to a sitting position and waited for a few minutes until they pulled up. Ben was worried that I was really hurt and Seppe immediately started crying. Ben’s dad carried me to the car and drove me back to camp. They put ice on my ankle and Ben cleaned up my knee that I had torn up from my fall. Between the ice and the alcohol on my knee, I was in lots of pain. I had scraped up my hand too and Ben thought there was a splinter. He tried to dig it out which hurt a lot too. I sat there with ice on my ankle for almost a half hour.
I was pretty upset. I knew I had hurt my ankle pretty badly this time. This was the worse I’ve hurt my ankle. I knew that meant no running for a while. No to pretty much working out for a while. I got up after the ice had melted and forced myself to walk around. Luckily, it wasn’t broken. I could walk on my own and the pain wasn’t too bad. My grandpa found an ace bandage for me to wrap up my ankle and that helped out. I moved slow for the rest of the day but I moved on my own. I have fairly flexible joints and I’ve rolled my ankle on runs before but I can usually just walk it off and keep going. This wasn’t like that so I knew I couldn’t push too hard.
Lunch was pastrami sandwiches/fruit/chips and dinner was hamburgers/chips – which Ben did most of the cooking. I just put together the sides and warmed up his soup. He didn’t want to risk trying to eat solid foods while camping and have something happen so he stuck with his soups.
We went shooting. I shot Ben’s dad’s 9mm but it hurt to hold the gun since my hands were torn up from the fall. I did manage to hit the center of the target despite my hands :-)
The walk to and from the range area was tough on my ankle and at the end of the night it was really tight and sore. We had another campfire and this time we had s’mores :-) Another beautiful night sky but a little cooler. It was not hard to fall asleep but we woke up in the middle of the night to loud animal noises. It’s really hard to describe but it sounded as if an animal was dying or being attacked. It sounded close too. It went on for a few minutes and all of sudden stopped. I was surprised Seppe didn’t come running to sleep with us. He couldn’t wait to talk about it first thing when he woke up Sunday morning.

May 25, 2014
I woke up early but stayed in my sleeping bad because it was cold out. I heard Gio and Gene get up and head out to fish. We stayed in our bags for a little longer. Seppe told us what he heard and wished he could have seen what was happening. Lol. We told him that it was better that he didn’t. We got up and started to clean up a bit. We were planning on leaving later in the day.

Before we started breakfast we went to find Gio and Gene because it was getting late. Gio caught two fish! We actually found them as he was catching his second one. We rode back to camp. Ben made eggs again and we had cinnamon toast and fruit. Seppe played in the creek one last time and I started to slowly pack up.

My ankle looked really bad. It was pretty swollen but it didn’t hurt as badly as it did the day before. I was able to walk around a little faster. I took off the bandage and was able to still get around.
Ben went on one last shooting trip and I spent time with my grandpa. I was a little sad this trip because I realized something: Hatcreek wasn’t Always going to be here. It would all end one day and sooner than we realized. It’s funny how as a kid I wasn’t too thrilled to come during my summer break and now, I wish I could come more often …

After our Turkey burger lunch, we cleaned up, packed up and loaded up. We took pictures with my grandpa and we said goodbye to Hatcreek for hopefully only a short time. We want to come back in a couple months :-)
It was a long ride back to Ben’s dad’s house. We had Arby’s for dinner. I had cherries for my snack in the car. Getting to Gene’s house wasn’t the end of our trip. We still had the 2hr ride back to the bay. We got home close to midnight Sunday night.

So that brings us to Memorial Day.

We didn’t get to sleep in much. Ben had to work and we went to watch Gio’s tournament team play in a championship game. After that I spent the day doing laundry, unpacking and cleaning up. My ankle was not as swollen as Sunday but it still was puffy. I could walk fairly normal at a slow pace. I tried to keep it as elevated as possible when I wasn’t up and doing something.
I did try to do some squats but it took only a few for my ankle to tell me that it wasn’t ready yet. I did manage to do a plank with my bad ankle on top of my good one. No side plank so I did 1min on my elbows and 1min on my hands. I ate fairly clean minus the blueberry bread in the morning. I really need to watch my diet while I’m unable to do cardio.
Dinner was the trout Gio caught camping :-) It was sooo yummy. I did a simple lemon garlic seasoning and pan “fried” on the stove with Olive Oil spray. Ben was able to eat it too :-)
It’s killing me that I can’t do much because of my ankle. Arms and abs – as long as I don’t have to put weight on only one leg. I’m being extra careful because I have a tendency to rush right back into working out which usually winds up taking me longer to fully recover. I am giving myself this week to recover. I want the swelling to at least be gone before I start back up. I’m hoping that by the end of the week I can get back to doing some type of cardio.