Hey, guess what- it’s pumpkin time! September 1st is the official start of Pumpkin Palooza, a festival celebrated by… well, very few. But those of us who celebrate, do it very enthusiastically. Light your pumpkin-scented candle and let’s get into the Weekly Rundown! Thanks as always to Kim and Deborah for hosting.
Monday
I started the week with an upper body workout from Sally McRae’s app, and followed that with Caroline Girvan’s deadbug workout.
After work I went to my sports chiropractor for the second treatment on my calf. He did some scraping, and ART. He suggested waiting a couple days to let the soreness from the treatment subside, then run on Thursday. Okay!
Tuesday
45 minute pool run! I think this might have been my least favorite pool run ever. It rained, and also with about 20 minutes to go my flotation belt broke. I finished the workout awkwardly holding the belt under my arms.
Later in the day I did my hip stability exercises.
Wednesday
Gym day! I did 20 minutes on the Stairmaster, then did a hard leg day, plus bench press and abs. I was definitely feeling down before this workout but felt MUCH better afterwards.
Thursday
Running day, finally! I walked one mile and ran two. No pain in my calf, but that doesn’t mean anything. I usually have no pain the first run back. But I’ll take a pain-free run any day!
Friday
Full body strength- hip stability, upper body (Sally McRae app) and core (Caroline Girvan.)
After work I had another ART treatment on my calf. It was painful but productive! He suggested that, for now, I run every third day- okay, fine. Any running is better than no running.
Saturday
Off- except that, at my daughter’s request, I got out our pull up bar and did some dead hangs. Funny how hard those are now! Am I going to once again start doing dead hangs and negatives, pretending that I’m working my way up to an actual pull up? We’ll see.
At night, WOO HOO! The first Baylor game!
We have an exciting new quarterback, and won 45-3. Perfect way to start the season!
Sunday
On tap for today- well, it’s the third day so I get to RUN!!! After that, the first pumpkin waffles of the season, and taking out my fall decor. Don’t try to rain on my parade by telling me it’s too early- school has started, football is in full swing, and it’s September. Pumpkin time!
I’m still working on my blog issue- please scroll waaaay down to leave a comment (I don’t know why this happened, grr!)
Do you follow college football?
Too early for fall, or are you ready?
Top photo by Dave Adamson on Unsplash
38 Responses
finger cross the new treatment and plan works!!
we are still summer… like forever….. hopefully we see fall again soon.
Our weather feels like it will be summer forever! We’ll get a cool down around the beginning of November.
Hooray for ART and a return to running.
No it’s time for pumpkins. I’m ready. Not for football. Us open tennis.
Yes, I saw you enjoyed a pumpkin drink from Starbucks this week! Maybe we’ll watch some of the US Open today.
ANd here I was going to complain about the Thanksgiving-themed products at the grocery store! (It was the turkey-shaped chocolates that I thought were way too soon).
I hope the ART does the trick. I think the fact that it hurts indicates that it is doing something!
P.S. The comment field seems to be where it should be.
Oh thanks Coco- you’re right, it looks better. But it’s only working because this is a longer post. Otherwise you have to scroll down past the recent posts written out in their entirety on the sidebar.
And yes- even I will agree that it’s too soon for THANKSGIVING. Let’s start with fall and Halloween.
Glad to hear your calf is showing signs of improvement! I’m having lots of calf tightness and have been taking my theragun to them–ouch! I’m starting to have twinges of PF and we don’t want to go down that path.
You know I’m a college football fan! On Wisconsin! Go Badgers!
Yes, you’re a Badger! And no, you don’t want PF again. Loosening up your calves now should help.
Woo hoo for running every third day!!!
I’ve had so many mornings like your pool run morning where everything went wrong, and it feels like the universe is telling you not to work out. The only thing you can do is laugh.
I’m all for the start of pumpkin season! I love summer, but I’m ready to move on to fall…and then winter so that we can get summer back.
I felt like the universe was telling me that pool running is stupid. Okay, I’ll be happy to run on the roads again, universe!
Yay, glad for some potential calf progress! I’m sure it’s so tempting to rush the process but hopefully if you can follow his advice exactly, it will be the right thing overall.
And also yay for pumpkin season! I also love love fall but usually don’t bust out all my fall decor QUITE this early in September. But I will be away for a conference for a week at the end of Sept and then another week with family in Mexico in October, so, I might need to start enjoying fall sooner than later this year. Don’t want to miss it!
Yes, Kae, do it soon! Get your fall things about before you go away for that conference! You definitely don’t want to miss it.
Ooh it does not feel like pumpkin season yet. I have a philosophical ban on anything pumpkin until October but you go ahead and enjoy! Fingers crossed for you that your calf treatment works and you continue to be pain free. That scraping is fun huh?
Thanks Deborah! Yeah, scraping is “fun.” But I WANT it to hurt- that way I feel like it’s doing something.
I hope the run goes well today! And happy fall to you! I am still holding onto summer but if I lived in FL I would be declaring the start of fall, too!!
We do not follow college football. It doesn’t seem to be as big of a thing in the upper Midwest. We follow the Vikings and loosely follow the U of M Gophers. I went to a smaller school so it doesn’t have a big team to follow. I went to grad school at the U of M but don’t have an allegiance with them because it was so freaking expensive and I feel a little salty about that school!
I was never into college football until I had a son in college, and now I LOVE it! I actually like it more than the NFL (although of course I’ll watch that too.) Oh and I root for all Florida teams, or Texas teams (unless they’re playing Baylor) but I couldn’t care less about my own alma mater.
Yay for running! Even even 3rd day is something. I’m slightly injured right now and going crazy not running so I wish I were running again. That’s crazy about your flotation device! But amazing how you made it work by holding it. Nice job!
Yes Melissa I read your blog post. Ugh, it’s so hard not to run. Hopefully your issue will be resolved SOON.
That’s a full week of excellent activity, some good tentative runs, and hopefully you had a great one today!
And I think you fixed your blog issue?
Bring on the pumpkins!!
The blog issue only looks like it was fixed because this is a longer post. It’s still showing every single word of the recent posts in the sidebar (WHY?) But I’m glad everything else is working.
I say we celebrate any time we like, so you enjoy your pumpkin palooza! I have like five pumpkins in the garden right now, no idea what I am going to do with them.
Nicole, if you don’t want to eat them you could just use them as decorations! It would be so cute.
I am SO ready for fall because it is my favourite season of the year. I honestly wish I could just live in September/October forever. I love the weather. I love the food. I love the new beginnings and routines.
I’m glad you’re making progress with the calf. It must be so, so frustrating, but I’m incredibly proud of you for sticking with this and trying new things. You’ll get there eventually and I’m sure you’re learning more about your body and how it recovers throughout this process.
That’s an incredible first game result!!!
We start school on Thursday and I’m counting down the days. On one hand, I am SO ready for routine. On the other hand…I can’t believe it’s time for school to start. This summer positively whizzed by.
I agree Elisabeth! I wish we could just be in fall forever. Well- except that September-October are not great weather months down here. It’s still super hot and we have a lot of storms. Okay, I’ll vote for a perpetual November.
I remember my PT doing a LOT of scraping when I was seeing her (our “relationship” began almost a year ago, in October, and lasted a good eight months). This reminds me that I should get back to a better routine with my Theragun (why do we let those maintenance things slide when we start to feel good?). Of course, I’m a huge NCAA sports fan, and it’s been a long time since basketball ended, so I’m all about football!!!! Congrats to your Bears! My Hawks had a similar win (40-0), which is a great start, but these pre-season games can be pretty misleading…
Nope! I’m taking this first game as a sign that we’re going to have an AMAZING season!!!
My relationship with the sports chiropractor has been on-again-off-again for at least ten years now. I always think I’m going to try something different but come crawling back eventually.
I’m so glad you’re back to running and hopefully it continues to be pain-free!
I think September is acceptable to break out the fall decor and food, even though in AZ and FL it won’t feel like fall for quite awhile. At least we can pretend it’s fall while we’re enjoying our pumpkin things!
Yes, this is truly “pretend fall” for us. But if I waited for the weather to actually cool down, it would be winter and I would miss fall entirely. We wouldn’t want that!
Too early for fall here (it’s still so hot) but you do you! I know how much you love your pumpkin palooza! 🙂
It sounds like you had a decent week and I hope the treatment and you taking it easy on the running will help your calf heal!
Yes, I certainly hope so, San! This thing has been going on long enough.
Hope this new treatment will help! Btw what is scraping? It sounds very painful to me but maybe the name of the treatment is just overly dramatic?
I’m not into pumpkins but actually, despite this dreadful joke of a summer, I’m excited about autumn. There is something special about the autumn and the crisp fresh air. We’re going to Italy soon so we’ll get our share of real summer and after that I’ll be very ready for autumn walks.
I wonder if I could do dead hangs. When we first got the pull-up bar in early 2023 I couldn’t even do that but oh how much lat and shoulder training I’ve done since then.
Suzanne, your lats and shoulders are so strong, dead hangs would be a piece of cake for you.
“Scraping” is also called “graston” or in Chinese medicine, gua sha (or, at least it’s similar to gua sha.) Not sure if you’ve heard of either of those. Basically the practitioner has a little tool and actually scrapes the skin over the muscles, to promote blood flow. It’s not painful EXCEPT in the areas where you especially need it. Like with me there was an area in my calf that felt very “grainy” and he spent more time scraping there. It’s less painful than ART, though.
Yay! I am so glad you are back to running a little! That’s great news. I was just asking Lisa (because she is the PSL expert) why there are pumpkin coffees already in August! They start early; I guess they didn’t get your Sept 1 memo! Aside from.cycling, my only exercise is a 2-3 mile walk every couple of days to get groceries. I should probably do some YouTube strength workouts or maybe go for a short run from time to time, but the motivation just isn’t there!
Kyria, I think you’re good with just the cycling for now!
I know- Starbucks rolled out their pumpkin drinks at least a week ago. I have no problem with that! Start as early as you want.
I was at a family function this weekend and football was on and I was SO CONFUSED. Like, it’s football time AGAIN? Didn’t we JUST HAVE IT? And it turns out that it’s back. *sigh* Bring back the Olympics is what I say.
It’s good to hear that you’ve gotten in two pain-free runs since the scraping. Fingers crossed your sports chiropractor is on to something.
I’ve had so many blog issues lately that I don’t even know where to begin to fix them… 🙁
And nope, it’s not too early to decorate for fall. It’s September after all!
I have had good luck with ART/scraping. I hope it helps you! It hurts though!!!
I think September counts as fall, right? October is by far my favourite month of the year 🙂
I clicked through thinking, football season! and then it was pumpkinpalooza. LOL. I guess they go hand in hand… I haven’t heard anything about Baylor this year. Did they change conferences?? I can’t keep it straight anymore!
I hope hope hope the scraping helps. It sounds like he found some trigger points so maybe working on those will help your chronic issues? Fingers crossed.