Ok, I’ve been trying to get this post out the door for almost a week, so bear with me if it gets a little concise towards the end…

As I alluded to in my Week 7 Recap, things haven’t been going according to plan.  If you’ll remember, I shifted my schedule by a day to accommodate life getting in the way.  Because I had to work Saturday morning (fail), my long run found itself set for Sunday.  Well, Saturday morning I woke up early, slid out of bed, and nearly fell over.  Son of a fish… My left foot sent a piercing stab of pain screaming from the floor up to my brain as if I stepped on a bolt of lightning.

All day Saturday I limped around like a chicken with its foot cut off, but tried to put it out of my mind.  Ultimately, it didn’t matter if my foot hurt on Saturday; I wasn’t even planning on running Saturday!  All my hopes lied in my body fixing itself over night.  Alas, I let me down.  Sunday morning.  6am.  Foot still hurts.  Son of a Twix…  Bitch.

There was a long period of demoralized time where the main thing I could think about was missing a long run and breaking my streak.  Looking back, I’m impressed with myself that I had the discipline not to jam 18 miles worth of steps onto my left foot, which at about 1000 steps per mile, per foot, is 18,000 impacts for my stressed out left foot.  No thank you.  Alas, no long run, but it actually made missing the next two runs a little bit easier.  I was able to say “well, I missed 18, so what’s the big deal if I miss another 7?”, which parlayed into “12 miles?  Who needs it?”.  In the end, I missed 3 runs in a row, which totaled 37 miles and immeasurable momentum.  Son. Of. A. Peach.  Bitch.

So, after taking Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off, Wednesday was set in stone as my first trial of the foot after gradually diminishing feelings of “owwwwww”.  I’ll consider it a bit of a birthday miracle (as it was Ev’s birthday) and had a successful, though mildly uncomfortable run (and certainly not better than my run from exactly one year earlier).  Keeping with the birthday miracle theme, I was able to lay down 9 miles Thursday morning for my own birthday run.  It wasn’t easy, but I attribute 90% of the struggle to the extra 12 lbs I was carrying, also known as Dual Birthday Celebration Dinner.

As it were, it seems that the foot is steadily improving, even after back to back runs.  Next up, 20 miles in South Carolina!  Stay tuned for a word from our sponsors me.  Bitch.