Week Ending Feb 11, 2012

After putting in a good showing with 74 miles last week, I thought I was back in the swing of things. Then I got an awful toe pain. I had had a little pain in my toes (the pinky toe of the right foot and the one next to it) for a few days, but it was nothing significant, and I hadn't thought much about it. It got worse and worse this week and I finally stopped to look at it on Tuesday. I had what looked like a plantars wart on the side of my fourth toe. It was a small circular thing with a dot (like a seed) in the middle. I couldn't believe this was causing so much pain. It felt like someone was squeezing my toe as hard as they could with every step. The pain was worse on Wednesday; it was really bad the first several steps after getting out of bed or after sitting and doing nothing for a while. It was brutal pain when I put on shoes and my toes were squeezed together in the toebox of the shoe. I taped the toe with athletic tape and ran anyway. The pain went away after 15 minutes or so. Thursday was like Wednesday, but worse. My pinky toe was hurting too and it felt like someone hit it with a hammer. On my Friday morning run I was actually limping. I really thought I had broken one of my toes even though I had know idea when or how - it's like the pain just came out of nowhere. I didn't think it was smart to run anymore because I was afraid of doing something to my knee or hip as a result of the limping. When I finished the run, I had a huge blister on the inside of my pinky toe. The taped fourth toe rubbed against the pinky toe so much it caused a blister. I saw our athletic trainer Friday afternoon and she said it was a corn. What is a corn? I certainly didn't know. The simple little corn was causing all my pain. My pinky toe was not broken, nor was anything wrong with it at all. She had me soak my foot (an opened blister) in epsom salt and gave me corn covers and gel type stuff to put over the corn. The stuff she gave me worked because my foot felt so much better on Saturday, then better on Sunday, etc.
As for running, I did not run on Sunday and ran slow and easy on Monday. Tuesday was a long day on Fountain Creek and Wednesday was a medium day. Thursday was a double (while in pain) of 5+ in the morning and a long 16+ in the afternoon. The long run was in Cheyenne Canon and I managed to find two trails I had never run before (I thought I had run every square foot of that entire area). I ran on the Upper Columbine trail (western columbine) to the Helen Hunt Falls parking area - I had been there many times, but never on that trail. I ran back on the trail and took the fork to the Spring something trail, which ended right by the first tunnel on Gold Camp. I can't believe I'd never been on that trail. Friday was 4.5 in the morning and then no more running due to unreal toe pain. I wrecked my car on Saturday. I was on my way to Frisco for a snowshoe race and started fishtailing on the icy roads outside of Manitou. So I came home and ran that afternoon instead. It was really cold and I ran hill repeats near home for two reasons: I didn't know how long I would last in the cold and my toe still hurt. I ran 9 repeats on a hill that takes about 2min 30sec. 70 miles for the week.