Monday, July 26, 2010

My First Stubbed Toe --- OUCH!!


My husband told me that I'm not allowed to mention this toe I stubbed this morning to him for two days, since he is sick of hearing about it.  ("Do you think it's broken?  Can I run on it?  Can I do Kung Fu on it?  Will you just look at it again?  How can you tell it's not broken?")  So, I thought I'd come over here and blog about it.

Yes, after writing that post recently about being careful and the risks and stuff, I must have had it on my mind, and, sure enough, today I stubbed my toe.  In case you were wondering, it's the fourth toe on my left foot.  Do you want to see it?

I don't know how to get these pictures to line up side by side.  Guess my html is not that good.  I have a closer-up shot I'll put below this.  But I'll let you know here that I did not do this while running.  I went out for a wonderful barefoot run today.  I was starting to get the hang of what the difference was between mid-foot and forefoot.  I was starting to understand that I was landing too far forward on the foot and that I needed to land just a bit back from where I was, on the wider and softer part of the pad.  I finished my run, very pleased with some new findings, and I was walking back up my driveway when IT happened.  I stubbed my toe on the broken up concrete of our driveway.  So dumb.  I was so alert and aware during the run, but walking back with my dog I was daydreaming a little.  It hurt A LOT.  But all I could think of was how much more it would have hurt if I had done that while running.  A kind warning from the gods of barefoot running to be careful.

Here's a close-up (not too pretty):

My husband, as I mentioned above, is pretty sure it's not broken, but it looks all purple and it hurts, but it hurts when I play around with it and not really when I'm walking, so that's a good sign.  We'll see how it is in the morning.

I'm just filling up this space with some rambling because I don't know how to configure the page to line the pictures up.  But in a minute I'm going to share a picture of the broken up driveway that caused the problem.  I was walking around the car on the side, balancing myself and trying to stay ahead of the dog (Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer says you're not supposed to let the dog go first --- hmmmmph!)

We need to get this driveway fixed if I'm going to be walking around barefoot on my way home from barefoot runs.  So ends the day of my 17th and a half barefoot mile.

5 comments:

Neil Zee said...

Wear flip flops out to the end of the driveway, then leave them there till you get back!

Avocational Singer said...

Ha ha! Now why didn't I think of that? Actually I did -- when I was away recently at my chorus festival in Princeton. I carried my flip flops with me and put them on to walk back to the hotel. But I got them very dirty by doing that and had to give them a good cleaning back in the room. Have to get a pair just for that purpose.

Junk Miler said...

There's another rule to barefooting that rarely gets mentioned: writing a post about exercising caution dramatically increases your chance of injury.

Avocational Singer said...

Believe me, BFJ, that was not lost on me as I stubbed my toe!!

Neil Zee said...

hahaha Josh... too true! The moment you start thinking, BAM it's all over...