It was a good morning!!!

I am SO happy today because I had an excellent workout this morning for the first time in 11 days 😀 I never thought I would miss exercise so much! As I was going to bed last night at 9:30, I took two naproxen in the hopes that they would hold me through this morning since I didn’t want to have to take one on an empty stomach. I also set my alarm for 4:50am so that I could get the heating pad going on my “right gluteal muscle” for a few minutes before I had to move. I was out the door by 5:13 and did a 4.5 minute jog to the gym very lightly. It hurt a bit, but now that I’m not as worried about tearing something, the pain didn’t really bother me and seemed stable rather than worsening.

At the gym, I spent about 1/2 hour doing month 1 of the 2009 Self Challenge strength workout. I tore it out of the magazine at the gym a month or so ago (shhh) and decided now would be a good time to start because a few of the exercises involve lunges and squats like the sports doctor recommended yesterday. I did all of the exercises as written, though I had to do the “make it easier” option for the “arm accentuator” and the “total transformer” because they did seem to aggravate my groin and glutes in a way that made me nervous.

I followed the strength with 20 glorious minutes on the Stepmill at Level 10, 7 minutes of leg stretching, and the 4.5 minute jog home. Again, mild discomfort, but nothing seemed to be worsening! Of course, that’s what I thought when I was running those 10 miles two weekends ago and the pain all of a sudden got much stronger. But anyway, I’m not planning to go quite back up to 10 miles yet — I might give 3 a shot tomorrow — and I’m also running very slowly and paying loads of attention to my posture and form. Hopefully, I am on the mend for good. And I so appreciate all of your support. Reading your stories, opinions, and advice has been super helpful, so please keep it coming!

Breakfast today was more overnight millet:

I’m really loving the texture. Some of you commented yesterday that you were surprised this worked with millet without any cooking. Again, the texture is still a bit crunchy, but if you try to bite a grain of raw millet, you’ll see it’s pretty easy to do even without the benefit of an overnight soak. Just to reiterate the process, I mixed 1/4 cup dry millet with 1/4 cup yogurt/ricotta/dried apricot blend and 1/4 cup unsweetened soymilk and left it in the fridge overnight. This morning, I gave it a stir and topped it with pineapple, strawberries, and unsweetened coconut. See the little millets?

If you try it, let me know what you think!

On the side, I had two teeny pieces of toasted pumpernickel baguette and a little raisin-walnut toastie topped with 1 tbsp cashew-almond butter (not chocolate) and more coconut:

Plus, my new Yogi Mexican Sweet Chili tea with a splash of soymilk.

I feel so satisfied now — I’m full of good nutrition, and I finally got my morning sweat going again 😀

On a scale of 1-10, how was your morning?

If you missed it earlier, check out my pistachi-YES giveaway!

And another contest I am DEFINITELY entering with all of this leg drama is the one for McDavid Compression Wear going on now at Run to the Finish. Go check it out!