Was It A Long Week, Or Is It Just Me

      It has seemed like a very long week. Before I get into that though, I forgot to mention something last week. After I ran those short distances on that Sunday, my ankle did have a flair up the following Monday. This of course gave me concern, so I shut down running for a week. I continued to walk, as a matter of fact I hit over 60 km that week. The pain was nowhere near what it originally was, but I didn't want to take any chances what so ever. It paid off. I ran one day this week and went probably about a mile all together, and the next day there was some pain, but it was even less than the week before. This made me decide that for the time being, I will only run one day a week until I feel no pain from that one day. After that I'll push it to two and see how that goes. Baby steps are the key. I tried to push through it last time and really messed things up, so I'm learning from my mistakes this time and taking it very easy.

      All that being said, the new techniques with the Xero shoes are working out great. My new stride is super efficient and easy going, while the lightness of the shoes makes it feel like I'm running in my bare feet. It feels like the shoes have actually molded to my foot now, so there is no sliding or moving around what so ever. They are truly a part of me when I'm wearing them. The one down side is that I run on a gravel path and I seem to always find the larger pointier stones. It's mostly when I'm walking though. I did have to shutdown for one day this week because of heel pain. Not in my ankle but from actually stepping on those larger pointier stones with my right heel in the same spot each time. The pain became so great that one night as I was getting into bed I rolled back on my heel at just the right spot, and it nearly dropped me to the floor. The day rest was beneficial. I was able to hit the trail the next morning ( adjusting my walking stride to resemble my running stride { no heel strike }) and everything went well. That did take my weekly total down to the low 50s in km this week though. I'll get the distance back up there again though.

     One of the features of Pokemon GO is medals for achievements. One of those medals is for distance traveled, and I'm nearing the platinum badge which means I've traveled 1000km. I'm at around 920km right now. I'd love to do 80km this week, but I'm not sure I can do it. When I hit that trail I do a little over 10km each time. I hit it 5 times this week, so 50km. Either I have to find a way to fit 8 days in this week, or get up even earlier and try and fit an extra 5km in each day. I may just wait until next week to cross that 1000km barrier.

     Another feature is having a buddy with you on the map. You pick a pokemon and make him your buddy and when you feed him berries, he will show up on the map for you. It's a fun little thing. You gain hearts by feeding it and doing other activities with it, one of them is taking a snapshot of it. I really thought this was a fun one, which is why I'm even talking about it in the first place. This is my buddy, early morning, flying over the lake with the sunrise behind it.

     Just for added information, that is a shiny legendary pokemon which makes it very rare. Be careful, my nerd is showing on that one.

     Just a brief health related update. I had a vegan day today, so I went a little lax on the carbs. I had me some Ben & Jerry's non dairy ice cream. It was their Netflix and Chill(there's more here but I don't remember it) ice cream, and it was really good. Peanut butter ice cream with pretzel swirls and fudge brownie pieces. It's been  a while since I've done a full vegan day. I've done vegetarian days, but not the full vegan, so I'm adding those back into my diet. That will give me a chance to eat the rest of that pint of ice cream over the next couple of weeks.

     It's time for Favorite Song of the Week. This song comes from a former AGT champion. She happened to be my choice for that season and I was really happy she won. She was one of the rare singers that actually wrote her own original songs. She has grown up quite a bit since then, and her sound has grown as well. The ukulele is taking a rest and a full arrangement is in place. This has a bit of a KT Tunstall vibe to it, and her voice, although still very unique, is a lot deeper and full of more soul. I give you Grace Vanderwaal with her newest song "Repeat".

     Oh, I noticed that my video didn't upload last week. If you want you can see it on my Instagram, but the final decision is that the culprit in the video is a raccoon AKA trash panda. I've heard plenty of them before, but never a scream like that. Turns out when they are in distress or even the throws of passion shall we say, they scream with a banshees wail. I can't 100% confirm that is what it really is, but after checking out several videos and recordist of trash pandas screaming, I'm very confident that is what it is.

     Before I go, there was a notification on the front page of this blog, stating that they were no longer going to provide the email service as of July. That means that if you are an email subscriber, they will no longer be sending them out starting in July. They are giving me the option to download my subscribers email list, but the whole reason I went with the system they had in place was that I didn't have anyone's email. That being said, I don't plan on downloading the list and keeping your email private to you. I'm sure that will mean that I'm going to lose some readers, but I want to keep you personal information personal. I am going to keep with my current schedule of positing a new blog each Sunday, so if you want to read it, you can look at this site anytime after 5 PM eastern time. It should be up unless something goes horribly wrong, or I'm just not in the mood to write. I do hope that you stick with me and keep reading. Oh yeah, if you are on Facebook and are friends with me, I will continue to post a link to each post there. Don't look to contact me on there though, cause I only go on anymore right after I post the link. I personally hate Facebook and although I really do want to get rid of it again, I'm keeping it because of The Pepperoni Report, which we do hope to get back to doing new reviews and videos for. 

     Well, that's it for me. I'm going to try and get some accountability photos this coming week, so I should have some for you next Sunday. Peace in and goodnight.