Injury

Quick training update for the week.

My 10 miler on Sunday went fine, despite the fact that my big toe hurt (more on that later.).  I was still running pretty slow, but it was so nice to run outside!  Some parts of the trail I ran on hadn't been cleared yet, but it actually felt good to run on the packed snow.  It was just like running on the dirt trails in AZ again!

This week is supposed to be a lower mileage week - around 18 - 20 miles.  My plan calls for a varied schedule where I run higher mileage for 3 - 4 weeks and then scale back in mileage for a recovery week.  I haven't exactly had a bunch of high mileage weeks, but I decided to keep the recovery week in my plan anyway.

In order to keep the mileage lower this week, I'm only running 3 - 4 miles for each run.  My first run of the week was yesterday.  My toe was still bothering me a bit, but I thought I could run through it.  Unfortunately, as soon as I started out, I knew I would have to turn back home and check out what was going on.  I didn't want to compromise my running form, potentially causing an injury, due to a toe issue.

When I got home, I immediately located the problem.  Apparently last week during the snow and ice running, some water got into my shoe and a blister on my big toe started forming.  The blister has gotten progressively worse and it's even grown a baby blister in between my big toe and other toe.  WARNING:  The picture below is gross, so feel free to skip over it if you are squeamish.

Ewww

I have heard that it's not a good idea to pop blisters, so I googled remedies and found a recipe that's supposed to help drain and dry up blisters.  The recipe called for three green tea bags, a tablespoon of baking soda, and 15 minutes of foot soaking.  Long story short, the remedy didn't really seem to do anyway.  So I bit the bullet, drained the sucker, and bandaged myself up.  I hoped that a good night's rest would help make it better.

And I'm happy to report it was!  I awoke today pain-free and was able to do a quick 3 miler around the neighborhood this afternoon.  I think I'll just count yesterday as my rest day and run every day the rest of the week.  Hopefully the weather (and my workload) will cooperate!