Flailing Arms and Bloody Toes

Yesterday I had to miss Team practice because they were meeting on the other side of the world (Redlands) late (8am) and my son had an early baseball game, his first of the season. Couldn't possibly miss that, so I headed out the front door alone to get in my 8 miles promptly at 6am. It's amazing to me that I took off fairly cheerfully, both because cheerful is not usually a word that would well-describe me at 6am, and because the thought of doing 8 miles all by myself a year ago seemed completely out of the question.

This morning was actually a good run. I spent a lot of time focusing on keeping my upper body still after getting some form pointers from my Team coaches last weekend. (I believe, "you are a MESS" was the phrase they used.) I tend to twist my arms and shoulders from side-to-side instead of keeping my arms pumping straight. As one of my assistant coaches put it, "you're just flailing your arms in totally the wrong way." Great, I twist AND flail!! I'm a flailure!!

It's actually difficult to "fix" things when you're running unless you constantly focus on it. The moment my mind would drift I'd suddenly realize I was twisting again. My shoulders ended up being a bit sore from the tension of trying to relax them, although I know that probably makes no sense! Since I want to propel myself forward, twisting my arms from side to side is a total waste of energy. I know this, but man, my body just doesn't want to cooperate. It's going to take me a while to get this adjustment made.

All the time I spent focusing on my arms and shoulders made the miles fly by since I had no room in my head for focusing on the distance I had left to run. I was almost surprised when I realized I was rounding the corner to home. I flew in the door and immediately started for the shower so we could get to the baseball game. As I removed my right shoe, however, I quickly realized something was wrong. The toe of my sock was covered in blood. I suspected another black toenail at first, but I hadn't felt any pain at all in my toes or feet for the whole run. I peeled the sock off and found lots more blood. What had I done?!? After a full minute of freaking out, I stuck my foot under the bath faucet and was able to inspect it. Turns out when I trimmed my toenails a few days ago, I must've left a sharp corner on my third toe, which had subsequently sliced open the side of my second toe with surgical precision. Amazingly, it didn't hurt at all...until I got in the shower. Water and soap hit the open cut and stung like MAD. OWWWW!

I have since repaired the offending sharp corner and bandaged the incision. I really hope it doesn't hurt when I run again. Limping along with flailing, twisting arms and bloody toes, I will be the terror of Foothill Boulevard.