7 Days To Go: Bumps & BruisesEarly on I knew the biggest thing to be careful of for the Iron Man was to stay injury free. I've been doing great on that front. I listened to my body and backed off when I felt anything resembling tendonitis, sore back, sore knees, sore this and sore that coming on. I was home free heading into the final stretch.
Of course, Friday night would find me walking in the dark toward my bathroom barefoot in my apartment. Of course, I would accidentally jam my right pinkie toe on the door frame so hard that I swear I heard either the wood or my toe crack from the impact. I was immediately on the floor holding my foot, biting my lip, and swearing under my breath. I flipped on the bathroom light to inspect the tiny throbbing digit. I hit the frame so hard that I split the skin between the pinkie and ring toe as well as under the pinkie toe. I had also split the toenail partway, turning it a bright white to offset the glowing red and blue of the swelling toe itself.
I tried touching it to feel if I broke it and a searing pain shot halfway up the outside of my foot and out through the end of little pinkie himself.
"No big deal, I can deal with it. It's not a race-stopper," I thought to myself. I continued on through the weekend, gently trying to "un-jam" the toe when ever I could while not breaking the healing skin open. I decided to go for an easy run of seven and a half miles yesterday afternoon. It took me an hour and five minutes despite the fact that I felt I was crawling the whole way. The toe held up pretty well and didn't hurt much at all so I was relieved.
Of course, Saturday night would find me walking through barefoot through my apartment again. Of course, I now feel a sharp, searing pain straight up through the center of my heel bone into my ankel. I know this feeling from a long time ago. In 1988 I had a two inch stress fracture in the same heel from learning to do back-flips while skating. Nuts. I put my running shoes back on to see how they feel. They feel very worn out and suddenly very flat inside while my pinkie toe is twice the size on my right foot compared to the left.
Do I need new shoes since I've put unknown miles on them since January? Maybe just some inserts? Maybe it's really nothing and I can get away with the runnning I have left until the finish line? Or is all of this just a bunch of small stuff that doesn't even matter and I won't feel a thing on race day?
Today is a swim and a bike ride and some final shopping for "gu" and "carbo powders" which I've also run out of in the last couple of days, making workouts slightly less "fueled" and a bit harder on my body so that I'm taxing myself more. I'm hoping to stay injury free while riding as I've yet to put a helmet on my head since my old one is at a friend's house in Oakland who I've been unable to get a hold of to have it shipped back to me. I guess I'll have to break down and get a new one lest my skull suffer a bump or bruise.
And so here I go into the last few days as the excitement of completing the race begins to outweigh the fear of not finishing despite the fact that yesterday's run made me feel as if I could never finish the full 26.2 mile run after the swim and bike phases. It's 99% mental and I've got to stay positive or I'll talk myself right out of it instead of right through it. I tell myself I've done much tougher things than this physically in my life. I tell myself that I'm more trained than I've been for anything else like this. I keep telling myself that "40 is the new 30" so I don't have an issue with my age.
I've made a list of everything I need to do, buy, and pack for the trip on Thursday. I just added "Bumps" and I added "Bruises."
Then I crossed them both off as being done.