Blogtember Link-up: “Life Lately”




Here’s the next in my series for the Blogtember link-up, a “life-lately” post, described as “What you’re up to, how you’re feeling, how you’re doing on your goals, etc. Bonus points for great photos!”

While I don’t have too many photos, here’s what my September has been like so far:

Another Trip to the Zoo

 

My best friend and I taking the same photo we took four years ago in the same place freshman year of college.

My best friend and I taking the same photo we took four years ago in the same place freshman year of college.

One of my best friends came to visit for her birthday and we went to the zoo.

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He was trying to escape and come home with me.

This time, I got to hang out with the turtles even more than I did the last time (and if you saw my Wordless Wednesday post, you know I love turtles). It was a fun day, and my best friend finally got to try the mac and cheese truck here in Philadelphia.

Baseball players foam roll and theraband just like ballerinas do!

Baseball players foam roll and theraband just like ballerinas do!

HQ and I also went to a baseball game for the first (and only) time this season.

Started a Part-Time Job

I said goodbye to my summer internship (which I’ll miss, a lot) and started a new part-time job in an office building a half a block away. It’s a pretty nice job, and I get to do a lot of writing, which I love.

Struggled with Allergies…

Ugh, normally, I love fall. But not this fall. My allergies have hit full force and it’s made getting to ballet and getting running done difficult because of constant headaches and congested sinuses. Lovely, I know. It’s part of the reason I feel like I’ve fallen behind in ballet class and why I’m nowhere near ready for this 5K next weekend like I wanted to be.

…and with Shin Splits (again)

Because of my lack of practice in both dance and running lately, leg pain hit me full force last week in my Thursday ballet class, so much that I wanted to cry. I had some realizations about my hyper-extended legs (partly thanks to @dancinbranflake on Twitter!) and learned they’re an extra thing (along with my overpronating feet) that I really need to be careful of in class. I took the entire weekend off from both, but I’ll hopefully be back at it this week.

What has your September looked like?

Any advice on overpronation?

Ballet shoes, showing the dancer's feet in fif...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Overpronation is when your feet roll inwards too much towards the big toe side of the foot. It happens a lot when dancers try to “fake” their turnout using their knees and ankles instead of their hips (guilty here). It was brought to my attention last class that I should instead be trying to distribute my weight equally among my toes and place it more back on my pink toes as well (people in this dance.net forum recommend the same thing.) I tried to maintain this throughout class, but it was tough–and I feel like the rest of my technique suffered and my arches were crazy sore throughout class. Sigh.

My overpronation is probably the cause of all my ballet-related shin splints which have been really bad as of late and haven’t been much motivation for me to get to ballet class. Since getting new sneakers and running more often, my running shin splints have been reduced to almost nothing (almost).

I know that overpronation can be created by forcing turnout (you can try it and see for yourself) but I also know I overpronate when I stand “naturally”–which I figured was caused by the fact I am one of the most flat-footed people ever–especially since new sneakers have helped. So I took to the Internet to try to get more of a solution…and pretty much came up with a variety of different explanations…and no real answer.

Some say that overpronation is purely a technical problem (sure, I can correct it, but it’s still how I naturally stand and feel like I have for a while). Others say it’s caused by being flat-footed. Others, ankle weakness.  A lot of websites recommended orthotics (which won’t work with ballet) others say if it’s not caused by flat feet, that’s not a solution. My head is spinning.

Advice anyone? I’d appreciate help whether you know about overpronating in runners or dancers.