Back...

Sorry for being off a few days--it's been one of those weeks.

First I had to miss two days of work last week because suddenly and without any warning at all, my walking foot stopped fitting comfortably and began digging under my kneecap with every step, causing excruciating pain. Worse, by the time that I realized that it was not going to be a minor temporary issue that could be resolved by walking around on it a bit or taking it off and putting it back on again, I was at work. So I had to shelve my day's planned projects and hitch a ride back home again since the buses weren't running so early. I lost that day and the next two waiting to get back in to see the prosthetist so we could figure out what was going on.

One minor adjustment later, I was good to go again. But it was another reminder that the line between "perfectly fitting" and "unusable" is often no greater than a quarter of an inch.

Ironically, the running foot still fit great, so for two days, I could run but I couldn't walk.

And the day after I got the walking foot fixed, I went for a run down in Georgetown--my first "real" (non-treadmill) run. And while I can do a mile and a half on the treadmill no problem, running for real on the ground turned out to be a lot harder, and it was all I could do to go a quarter mile out on the C&O towpath and a quarter mile back after a brief rest. Needless to say, this didn't make me feel any better. I've apparently got more work to do than I'd thought.

Then to cap it off, the next day I went back to the airport for another flight check. I have the plane down good as I used to, but dammit--I can't get on that left brake when taxiing courtesy of this inflexible left foot. Now I have to see if the FAA will grant me a SODA to fly despite this. My argument is of course that the brakes really only come into play on the ground and I can still make wider left turns with rudder only if need be, and my right turns--and my flying--are fine.

So it hasn't exactly been my week last week. But I'm not one for giving up, and when I hit the treadmill this morning before work, I turned in a new best time on the mile run. Still a crummy time compared to my old times, but better than my last best. There's still a lot of potential here. It's just going to take more time.
(Sigh...)