After today's run (the first run of the year that would qualify as "warm"), I sat down on my living room floor to attend to what has become a post-run ritual: the rebandaging of my left next-to-the-big-toe toe. Sometimes there's blood, sometimes it's ust impossibly sore, but after every run, I nurse that little guy back to some semblance of normalcy. He's pinkish, angry, and I can feel my heartbeat in that tiny littly nub of flesh.
I'd begun to debate going to the doctor. Is it broken? Can you "break" just the top part of a toe (images of bone chunks floating under my skin)? Will they tell me not to run? I kept putting it off because it never really stopped me form logging miles. It would hurt badly at the beginning of a run but once I was warmed up, it faded to a dull wince. And once you've got 10 miles under your belt, really, what's another ache?
Tonight, while bandaging, I also started trimming my nails, and then I settled on the painful duty of trimming The Toe That Hurts. After one snip a HUMONGOUS flood of water (right?) gushed
out of the top of my toe. It made a small pool in the carpet. Evidently, instead of breaking a toe, I'd been harboring the blister to end all blisters under my nail. How does that happen?? And what is more amazing is that this little guy has been paining me off and on for over six months. Half-marathon? Trail 15 miler? This guy was just killing me.
I'm tempted to go running again tonight just to see how different my foot feels. Glorious good-as-new toe!
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