You've Got To Be Kidding Me

Right now as I type, my foot is immersed in a bucket of ice water. I know what you're thinking. Is Brian even running enough right now to be hampered with an injury? Sadly my friends the answer is NO, not even close. But the point is that I want to be running that much.

Unfortunately I have been set back these past two weeks by some bizarre ailments. So the week leading up to our Nicaraguan vacation and the whole time we were gone, I hardly ran. Typically I take a break in October or early November, but the way our vacation was timed and the fact that I had no upcoming races, I opted for a slightly earlier break. My intention of course was to be back running strong by the time I'm normally cutting back for a little r&r.

The problem is that two weeks ago, after running moderately hard a couple of back to back days, I was struck by an incredible pain in my big toe. After a quick inspection and a self diagnosis I pegged it to be an ingrown toenail. Having never had an ingrown toenail, I had to turn to the internet and friends' experiences for advice. For two days, I hobbled around on it and even tried to run through about the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. I thought for sure that a trip to the doctor was in order, that is until I finally was able to drain it. Without going through the gory details, I'll just say that once the pressure under the nail was alleviated the pain went away immediately. I felt like I'd really dodged a bullet and got back to running, making up for lost time.

So now cut to this week. I was steadily building mileage up through Thursday, when on my way home I was suddenly aware of a tenderness on the outside of my foot. Ahhh, what now? I took Friday off from running and spoke to our in store doc as soon as I arrived to work. Turns out that because I was overcompensating for my toe injury, I've now aggravated my peroneal tendon by running and walking on the outside of my foot.

I'm only 31. I'm not old enough to be dealing with such setbacks, or am I? Without bragging about it, I've always taken great pride in my ability to run injury free. Hopefully this is just a little stretch of tough luck and I'll be back to training in no time. In the meantime, I'll keep my foot numbed in ice and my fingers crossed.