The Summer of No

1967 is known as "The Summer of Love". Why? Well according to everything I've read, it was when the hippies came to Haight-Ashbury; James Rado and Gerome Ragni started seriously working on "Hair" and Scott MacKenzie had a huge hit with the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)". Fast forward to the summer of 2016. This was my summer of no. I had such wonderful plans for this summer. I would be skating more than I had in years; an adult intensive class on Tuesday, freestyle with an occasional lesson on Wednesday, another freestyle with the occasional lesson on Friday and another adult intensive program, which included off-ice on Saturday. Only something went slightly wrong. While I have had an adjustment to the blade placement by adding a bit of cardboard under the blade in the front of my skate and I can now spin, I still spend so much time with my feet in incredible pain. There is no rhyme or reason; it changes every time I put the skates on. There are session when, if I shake my feet really hard, the numbness goes away and I can continue. Then there are days when I have tears in my eyes from just skating laps in the first five minutes. I always warm-up my feet for no less than 15 minutes, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I end up missing at least 15 minutes of every session I skate because I have to take my skate off and massage my either numb or just painful feet. It's amazing. And more than a little confusing. I tell ya, it had been getting better and then....BOOM!!! It got worse. But wait, there's more... On Saturday morning, during off-ice I was not warmed-up as I hoped and strained my left hamstring. I know the difference between strained, sprained and torn. Definitely not torn. I've been doing everything I'm supposed to do to help it heal, the only problem is, I re-strained it two weeks ago. Since it is my left leg, I am at a loss as to when I'll be able to jump without pain. As it is, during yesterday's session, I had to leave early because I couldn't put any weight on my leg at all. Now I'm concerned. I had hoped to improve my MIF test this summer and to jump and spin like a mad woman. That didn't happen. So I am disappointed. I don't know when I'll have that much ice time again, no one has posted their schedule for the fall yet. I still hope to take my MIF test by Nov/Dec. I so want to compete at Easterns this year; it's so close. If you have any suggestions as to how I can fix either one of these problems, I would soooooo appreciate your feedback. Until that time...