Posts Tagged ‘running injury’

Monday was, for the most part, a great run: 12mi at a quick, comfortable clip even though it was 75 degrees out (you know I love me some weather whippin’).  But my toe!! Oh my toe.  It was like running on razorblades the whole time.  Yesterday, I could only run 4mi, it hurt too much and I was changing my gait to compensate.  Very bad.

If squeamish, skip
When I got home from the failed run, I discovered that the main cause of pain was due to little blood blisters forming in the injury from knocking against the rubber surround of my shoe.
End of scary bit

So with a little help from my friendly box cutter and my oldest working pair of Mens Kinvaras, I chopped out a chunk of rubber, same as I used to have to do regularly with the Ladies Kinvaras but this time on the other foot. I also figured out how to wrap up the injury effectively – a physics problem which had eluded me from the start.  That one thing let me walk around town yesterday without a modicum of pain.  Finally!

So the worst is over.  I can’t wait to get back out there today, restarting the high mileage train I’d hopped upon before this slight derailment.  And I promise to never, ever, ever again cut the callous off my pinky toe.  Ever.

Aside from that, in completely unrelated news, Fran and I are no longer an item.  We’re still friends but I’m back to being a free agent in the world again.  It’s positive and all for the best (nothing drama worthy) but I thought I would mention it.  You know, in case some rich handsome dude reads this blog and wants to take me to the south of France or something.

As of today, I’ve had three rest days thanks to the bona fide mess that is my toe.  Aside from the original callous-cutting debacle, I forgot to mention that I also rammed it into the coffee table Wed. evening, starting the cycle all over again.  It never hurt when sitting, btw, but as soon as I bore weight on it or put it in a shoe, any shoe…ohmygod.  It simply could not have been in a worse location on my foot.

So I took Thursday and Friday off and with the help of  New Skin, Band-Aid blister bandages, a fresh tube of Neosporin, moleskin, sterile pads and medical tape (not simultaneously) I returned to the road yesterday for a wonderful, pain-free run.  But when I got home, I looked down and saw a touch of blood on my shoe – the bandage had shifted, opening it right back up again.  Grrrr.

Today, I expected a normal run, it felt and looked much better and seemed fine while I walked around the house – I figured a single band-aid would do the trick.  So I go outside, run 10 steps and damn if I didn’t feel it with each step, so I said “screw this” and went right back into the apartment.  I could have swaddled it up to get through another run but I’m tired of how long this is taking, I just want it to be done.

There has been one good thing about the situation; I needed a cutback week and I got one.  Here’s my weekly mileage progression starting at the beginning of February after the 2-week break to the present: 32, 43, 51, 51, 57, 60, 66, 70, 76, 71, 85 and, er…48.  I really noticed the effect of the rest days on yesterday’s run, btw, very bouncy legs.

Anyway, I still got in 315 miles for the month and May will be more, providing I don’t do anything idiotic to my feet again.

Here’s the week as it went.  Mon-Wed were 80 degrees and humid, Saturday was a lovely 64 degrees.
Monday: 9@8:28
Tuesday: 14@8:18 (ow, my toe)
Wednesday: 11@8:25 (goddam, my toe)
Thursday: Nasty toe rest day
Friday: Nasty toe rest day
Saturday: 14@7:55 (much better, my toe)
Sunday: Hopefully last  toe rest day
Total: 48 mi (avg pace 8:15)

An FE/Blogger Meet Up!

This morning was the Broad St. Run and while I had already decided not to race it (good thing, since this toe drama would have had me freaking out all week), I went to a pre-race dinner last night to finally meet a gal I’ve known online for a couple years, the inimitable Darkwave (Cristina).  She writes a wonderful blog featuring valuable information for injured runners, stuff on pool running and e-stim machines, etc.  Anyway, she arranged the dinner with about 10 runner/bloggers I didn’t know and a good time was had by all.

I blatantly ate 3 different kinds of seafood as if to say “I scoff at you, race!  You cannot control me!”  but mostly because the picture on the menu looked really good.  As for Cris, she’s one cool chick, I’m so glad we got to meet.

Girl In Motion/GIM/Flo & Darkwave/Anarcha/Cris

More Book Reviews
I don’t know how it works but within a week of reviewing Kara Goucher’s book, I got 3 more invites to review other running books from different publishers.  Maybe it’s because my Kara review landed on Google’s first page of results (thank you, Google) or maybe the publishers share info between them because it’s kinda odd, though I’m happy to get free stuff so no complaints.

So far, I’ve turned down a book on some Ultra guy (don’t care) but will be receiving Grete Waitz’s Run Your First Marathon and Chris “Macca” McCormack’s book I’m Here To Win.  The first one is timely due to Grete’s recent passing and the 2nd one sounds like a fun read, machismo mixed with hard-core training.  Anyway, expect those some time in the next few weeks.

Speaking of reviews, I wanted to add something about the little portable iPhone/iPod dock I bought/reviewed in March.  That thing has come in very handy for watching movies on the laptop in bed.  You know how laptop sound always sucks?  I just plug a cable from the dock to the laptop and voila…big, clear sound.  Anyway, that’s a tip for anyone with similar hardware.

No, this isn’t another post about Iron, it’s what my pinky toe looked like the last couple days. Raw meat.

I did a really stupid thing a few days ago: cut off a callous at the bottom of my little toe. I’ve done it before without any problems but this time I cut too much. Until that moment, I never realized how important the pinky toe is for walking and running. There’s a reason that it’s the only toe I have with a callous.

Anyway, when I ran on it the next morning, I knew it was going to hurt because it was painful just walking around my apartment (stupid, stupid, stupid) so I bandaged it up as best I could and left the house for 14 miles.

It was ok for a while but eventually began hurting terribly, so I stopped during the run to take the sock off and peruse the damage. Turns out the reason I was in so much pain was because the bandage had shifted and gotten all smashed up, creating a huge blister covering the inside of the pinky toe. Nice.

More stupidity ensued when I got home and popped and trimmed the blister. You’re not supposed to trim blister skin away but because it was between two toes I thought it was going to refill again (sorry, just be glad I’m not including photos, ok?).

At one point, it looked so raw and disgusting, I was worried about gangrene and even worse…having to take a rest day. Obstinance prevailed, however, and my Neosporin with the 2005 expiration date coupled with multiple dousings of alcohol saw me through. I’m now on the upswing (it’s nice and crusty now) and will be running this afternoon.

Moral of this story…leave callouses alone if you don’t want to give yourself the dumbest injury in the whole wide world.

Now that the idea is in my head, I can tell how badly I need it.  I’m seriously tired, tired of huffing and puffing through tempo runs and interval sessions and working the effort envelope.

Today was a troublesome speed session on the heels of two subpar 6mi tempos within the last couple weeks.  The speed session was supposed to be 5xmi@15k pace w/1min recoveries.  Halfway through the 2nd rep, I was thinking “I have a tempo run in just 2 days but this feels like I’m in the midst of one already and I just did one the other day…too much, I don’t wanna!”  It wasn’t good.

I was shooting for 7:00s, but couldn’t get past 7:05s  and the idea of continuing on for 3 more reps seemed a hellish prospect, so after the 2nd mile, I ditched the long intervals and switched it to 8 x .25miles w/1min rec’s.  In the end, I got 4 miles of fast out of it (total run was 9.75 mi) which is certainly worthwhile, but I feel ragged.  In response, Adam has kindly rejiggered this week’s tempo into 12×200 for which I am eternally grateful.

It’s crazy how without an injury to say “you must stop now” we really don’t have a clue when it comes to limits.  Sure, there are solid symptoms for overtraining, they concern sleep patterns, weight loss, not wanting to run among other things, but when it comes to the phase before that, overreaching, it’s your best guess.  And it’s frustratingly like that for so many areas of this sport.

Tapering, for instance: what’s the best taper for you?  How can you tell?  Even if you have a great race, could have been one thing during the taper period that made it that way, etc.  The only way to truly know what works for you is by many trials, errors and successes to reach that final “Aha!”  Or you can simply keep wearing your lucky red sports bra and say that was it.

Anyway, it continues to be a revealing learning process and despite the number of times I’ve thrown my hands up in the air out of utter frustration, I’m happy that there are still doors to unlock and secrets yet to uncover.  So I bitch, moan, whine and want to lay down to take a month-long nap, but in the end, I remain positive.

That said, Carlsbad may be more “fun run” than race for me.  We’ll see.

Food
With the holiday season, I relaxed a bit and had a little junk, but also, on the good front, I pulled out the long-ignored crockpot.  I love my crockpot but always thought of it as a two-or-more-to-feed appliance.  Well, in an effort to be a better mommy to myself, I’ve started making some wonderful cozy stews and mish-mashes of things that feed me for a few days or I freeze portions.  Today I made this Provençale Chicken: super duper easy – because cooking ain’t my thang – really healthy and yummy, too.  Shove the stuff in the pot, turn it on and go away.  That’s my kind of cooking.

(used 3 skinless breasts though, as per the reviews)

Foot
Went off ibuprofen on Saturday night, had a 17miler on Sunday (started sleeting and I wasn’t dressed for it, so a progression), a 6miler on Mon and an 8 yesterday.  My big toe knuckle was back to smarting on Monday and full-fledged hurting yesterday.  This was freaking me out, however, I think I found the cure!  I’d been using moleskin padding but it wasn’t that thick.   So I cut out a couple pieces from my foam yoga mat (one of those purple jobbers) and taped that around the bad spot…wow! it was like having a cushy pillow on the top of my foot.  That knuckle didn’t bark at all today!  I couldn’t believe it.  It’s been a downer to deal with all this last month, how lovely if it finally gets the boot.

The Philadelphia Half award came in the mail yesterday: a sweet and cheesy plaque.  I won’t be hanging it anywhere but it’s cute to have something personalized.

So I took 3 consecutive days off and am very happy to have done it.   My foot feels healthy again, though you can still see a little bump on the knuckle that isn’t there on the other foot.  I’m going for a 10-miler soon and might not use any moleskin for the first time in weeks (I’ve had to wear that stuff in all shoes this month, whether running or not).  Crossing fingers for no drama.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep on with ibuprofen for a few more days – it’s my savior, even if it does bloat me up somethin’ fierce.

Aside from that, I wrote a lot of personal stuff here and deleted it all.  Stuff about love, self-sabotage and relaxing the reins.  Too much deep shit.  Instead, I’ll just share that I bought a really swell computer monitor and a cute little pocket camera.  Buying stuff is cool.

Couple interesting reads
Here’s a great article that came out in the New York Times yesterday about maintaining fitness.  Doesn’t take much to keep what you’ve got.

Another fun read is this little thing about Webb and Rudd working out in a hallway of a building to avoid their usual rainy deluge.

I’m a little injured.  Nothing scary, but my right foot’s been troublesome for a few weeks now.  I think it’s bursitis-related though in slightly different locations: one is my big toe knuckle on top of the foot and the other is the ball of my foot under the neighboring toe.  I’ve had both these things before, though never at the same time, so while I’m not hugely concerned (it’s definitely not a bone thing) I’d like them to go away.

I’ve been wearing a moleskin donut over the big toe to keep it from touching the top of the shoe as well as putting a slit in my old Kinvaras for more room (that’s why I wore those shoes for so many days in a row).  I’ve also been massaging the ball of my foot and using Arnica gel.  What I stupidly did not do, and I’m not sure why, is to take ibuprofen until this Sunday.  Had I done that from the start, it probably would have been done with in a week.

Anyway, even sans ibuprofen, I was feeling just about cured until Sunday’s 14 when both areas acted up.  The snow storm had started and there I was in the park, in full winter gear, removing my shoe and sock (twice!) to rearrange the moleskin so it’d hurt less.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a more comfortable placement and ended up alternately whining and cussing for several miles until it shifted on its own to a less hurty position.

During this swearing festival, I also swore to take 2 or 3 days off in a row to get this thing nipped – a decision made infinitely easier thanks to the crappy running conditions the blizzard left behind.  The cool thing is that it’s my cutback week anyway; I’d already planned 2 days off but was still going to end up with 49 miles (just a 10mi reduction) so a 3rd day off actually makes sense even without an injury.

It’s feeling like a normal foot as I sit here poking and prodding, so now the only question is whether to take that 3rd day off tomorrow or take a rest day between Friday’s hard day and Sunday’s 17.  Decisions, decisions…