I've heard about them plenty, but apparently my running form is so exquisite (lol) that I've never experienced them.
Until this week when my left shin started hurting something terrible.
I thought about my exercise routine and nothing really seemed off about it and I couldn't imagine that I would have developed shin splints from running the same way I always do (again—exquisite form...or something). So I decided to blame my trek across campus last week.
I went to campus because I needed to go do some work in the book room and look at some papers in the special collections library.
The walk from my office to the library is...quite the hike.
And I wore a new pair of shoes that honestly had my feet quite miserable by the end—a mile to the library, a mile back from the library, and then walking to and from the car added another mile to the day.
Clearly I had been doing some overcompensating as I was walking.
Or something.
Whatever the case, by Sunday afternoon my left shin—specifically—was killing me. Did my right shin hurt as well? I imagined that perhaps it did because my feet were still a little sore from their three-miles-in-new-shoes adventure on campus earlier. I spent a little time discretely massaging them while watching Benjamin's swim meet.
And then I skipped my run on Monday because...my shins were still sore.
But Monday was a bit of a crazy day because I accompanied Rachel to the doctor in the morning and then took Benjamin to the middle school in the afternoon (to see about how to perhaps get on the middle school swim team) and...I wore pants...so I didn't spend a lot of time looking at my legs (and didn't have a lot of time to look at my legs anyway).
It just hurt...boo hoo...life moves on.
*****
I took the kids to the pool to meet up with some friends today. Some of us managed to put sunscreen before we left the house (well done, Zoë!), but the rest of us had to put sunscreen on at the pool. So I lathered sunscreen on Phoebe and I helped Alexander get some tricky bits (like ears and the back of his neck) and barked at Benjamin to put on more, more, more!
And then I finally squirted sunscreen into my hands to use on myself.
I lifted my left leg and rested it on a patio chair while I started to rub in that sunscreen and—holy moly!—my leg sure was painful still!
I looked down and...noticed a gnarly bruise right across the front of my leg (shin).
"Huh," I said. "Not shin splints."
On the one hand that was a relief because...I've never had shin splints before and I honestly didn't think now was a good time to start getting them (perhaps later...as a treat). On the other hand...I couldn't remember where that bruise had come from.
"Wow!" I said to my friend Heather. "I have no idea where this bruise is from!"
"Yikes!" she said. "Don't you love that? My doctor asked me once if I ever have any unexplained bruising and I was like, "Yeah...but I don't think I have leukemia or anything. I'm just clumsy."
And I was like, "Exactly," because the origin of a bruise of that size and colour truly had me baffled.
So I (low-key) thought about it all day and finally remembered...
*****
Instead of making posters or anything for singing time, I make PowerPoint presentations (technically Google Slides presentations), which I display on a Very Large television, which I wheel in from the library to the primary room every week.
Helpful that I don't have to carry around posters and whatnot.
Unfortunate that I have to wheel the television in.
You win some, you lose some.
We had a new family move in (huzzah!) and their little primary boy (who is 0% shy and 100% talkative) said, "Why is your TV on a stand like that? My primary has a TV but it's mounted on the wall. I think my primary is better than your primary because our TV is mounted on the wall and your TV is on a stand. Why don't you have a TV mounted on your wall?"
And I was like, "Honestly, that's a good point!"
And I looked over a the member of the bishopric, who was there to see his daughter give a talk, and shrugged and said, "I wish we had a TV mounted to the wall as well. I know they had plans to do that in the past, but for now we just have to wheel this TV in every week. We're just happy it's so big because our old TV was quite small...and we still had to wheel it in...so this is a big improvement."
And it really is a big improvement. I don't know how big that TV is (I've never asked) but it's fair to say that it is ginormous. And the stand it is on is also quite large.
For this week we were working on a secret code to learn a new song—The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.
The first line of the song goes like this:
I sing the words, "Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus." And then I ask the kids if they have figured out any part of the code.
The heart means love!
There's Jesus...but why are there two of him? (Why, indeed?)
And what's that yellow box for in the middle? (What, indeed?)
Then I sing the line again and the kids figure out more things.
The blue boxes are deep, deep!
The first yellow box is an O!
But what about the second yellow box?
So I sing the song again, and this time some of the kids are joining in with me because they've figured out enough of the music to do so.
Oh! There's two Jesuses because we take so long to say His name!
And the yellow box is the E in the middle! Je-E-sus!
Excellent! Here's the next line:
And I sing, "Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!"
And the kids say things like:
The rulers mean measured!
But she said un-measured!
Maybe because the rulers are broken and you can't measure with a broken ruler!
And we talk our way through the song like this, figuring out a part of the code and then singing through the line again and figuring out more of the code. And as we sing I kind of walk along the screen, pointing under each syllable as we sing it.
It keeps the kids very entertained while we're learning new songs. I don't do it with every song, but I often do for songs that I know are quite new for everyone in the room. And it (usually) works out just great.
*****
You should also know that I typically wear a pair of platform shoes to church. I have other church shoes, but honestly, these platform shoes—4 inches tall, pushing me over the 6 foot mark—are so comfortable that in spite of their platform nature feel practical somehow.
Practical and powerful because I tower over so many puny people with them on.
They're great.
*****
But let's do some math:
What do you get when you cross (1) a ginormous television on a big ol' stand with (2) a distracted music leader trying to walk from one side of the screen to the other (3) wearing 4" platform shoes?
I'll tell you.
You get an almost broken ankle, that's what!
But don't worry!
I caught myself (without even pulling the television on top of me—which is good because I don't have the best track record when it comes to televisions and them landing on top of me) and I didn't twist my ankle or anything.
I recovered quite well, in fact.
I mean the whole room gasped and I got quite the adrenaline rush (and, like, I hope the bishopric realized this klutz could use a TV mounted to the wall), but I recovered quite well. And I finished with singing time. And then we went to the swim meet on Sunday afternoon and then to the doctor on Monday morning and on and on and on...
And it turns out I bashed my shin super hard on that TV stand while I was tripping.*
And I don't have shin splints, so that's nice.
I went for a run this evening.
* For the record, I tripped because I ran into the TV stand, not the other way around...that makes it better somehow, right? Like I'm clumsy but not that clumsy...
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