Saturday, January 24, 2009

Blister

On the training plan for today was a 13-mile run, the St Paul Winter Carnival Half Marathon. But at minus ten degrees, I chickened out, even though they had cut it to 6.5 miles, and ran on the indoor track at the club instead. I wanted to run seven miles, and was doing fine, when Thursday’s blister started to bother again, even though covered by a band-aid. No runner stops for a mere blister on a toe, but:

  • We have a marathon coming up soon,
  • It is possible for a blister to become infected,
  • Theoretically, my immune system is compromised because of the myeloma and the chemo,
  • So an infection could possibly take me out of the marathon,
  • I’d rather finish the marathon at ANY speed than sit home with a swollen toe or foot, and
  • Two more miles of training really wouldn’t make much difference.
So I stopped at five miles, did my stretches, and went home to treat the blister and run again another day.

Good news though - for those five miles I had a really good run - no other pains. Excellent run in fact. Overall pace 8:41, and the breathing was easy. I think of myself as a morning runner, but I’m having good runs in the afternoon lately. It’s a masterpiece.

Splits: 8:48, 8:35, 8:47, 8:32, 8:42, total 43:24, pace 8:41.


Lunch
Lunch: Organic chicken with spices, organic baked beans with a squirt of organic mustard, organic mixed vegetables.

3 comments:

peter said...

I stop right away for blisters as soon as I can and address them, even if means curtailing the run for then. Better to come back another day, as us lawyers know.

Don said...

I should have said that runners don't stop in a RACE for a blister. In a training run, no doubt, the smart ones do as you do :-)

SteveQ said...

Runners don't stop for a blister in a race... unless they have another 8 hours to go; discovered that caveat in June.