Cross-Training for Injured Runners?

Many runners don't know what to do with themselves when an injury occurs. An injured runner will go through grief stages; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. It's worse if the runner has an injury that also denies them the opportunity to bike or swim, such as a stress fracture of the fifth metatarsal of a foot.
Jan unfortunately has this, which means she wears a "boot" all day to prevent movement and take weight off her bone so it heals. Jan has had about 27 foot injuries, stress fractures, heel spurs, tendons, sprains, basically a medical dictionary of what can go wrong. (I may be exaggerating a bit).
Today Jan began lifting weights again, which in my belief everyone should be doing anyhow. So this is good. But she also has another method to cross-train and here is the photographic proof.

That's right, Jan is a Wheel of Fortune Wheel Watcher member! The Wheel Mobile was in Syracuse last weekend and we drove there to tryout for the show. We filled out forms and waited for the show to begin. Over the course of an hour about 50 people were selected from the hundreds like us who were waiting to come up on "stage". Five contestants at a time talked about themselves and competed in one game while being filmed. Finalists will be chosen from those people and all of us in the audience within the next four months. From the finals a couple of lucky people will actually get to be part of the real Wheel of Fortune show.
So if you see Jan clomping around parking lots chasing down yellow buses just know she is training for television and a future race.

Das Boot

Quick, ten things you can say about boots;

1. What happened to John, oh, management gave him the Boot.
2. Why, I should kick you in the behind with my Boot.
3. These Boots were made for walkin'.
4. Look at him Boot that ball. (football punter)
5. Boots, isn't he that guy who works for Fleet Feet?
6. He died with his Boots on.
7. He pulled himself up by his Bootstraps.
8. "They would not be smart enough to pour piss out of their Boots, if the instructions were written on the sole” (Garrison Keillor)
9. “A lie can be halfway round the world before the truth has got its Boots on.”
10. How many Boots do we have on the ground? (military troops)

Why all the Boot writing? Well, EW has a plantar fascia injury that won't go away and has been ordered to wear a boot to immobilize her foot/ankle. Also, I injured my Achilles Tendon and Jan has finally convinced me, after 5 days, that I need to wear her boot from previous injuries/surgeries she has suffered through. Jan promises me if I wear this for two weeks the tendon will heal.

I do not like wearing this. I am not a good injured runner. I get grumpy, more than my normal demeanor of grumpiness. I can't even bike, that hurt more than running. I can't do lower body weight exercises, so I concentrate on the upper half. I can swim without aggravating the tendon.

But I really like to run.