I gave myself the day off after that miserable 18-mile run on Monday, and by the time Wednesday evening rolled around, I figured everything would be good to go for my track workout. I was right—almost. No GI distress or fatigue spells, no pain left over from the chafing (or bleeding). The one artifact that remained, however, was the blister on the ball of my left foot. Doesn’t seem like much compared to crippling fatigue, but as I discovered, it’s enough to ruin a workout.<\/p>\n
I ran a warmup mile, followed by two 1200’s in 4:26 each. By the end of the second, the blister was really starting to give me trouble, but that “just-tough-it-out” part of me wanted to keep going, to do the planned four 800’s through the pain. I started the first one, and after half a lap or so, I realized that I was strongly favoring my left side and running on the outside of my foot, so much so that muscles in my lower leg, which evidently never get used, were burning.<\/p>\n
I could have gritted my teeth and kept going. But thankfully, perhaps because of the lessons learned from the nightmarish 18-miler, I decided to stop. If I hadn’t, who knows what crazy stuff I would have done to my lower leg and ankle, not to mention the blister, which is already in the process of applying for its own zip code. Missing a workout or two won’t prevent me from qualifying for Boston; getting injured will.<\/p>\n
So where do things stand? I’ll see how it feels tonight; if it still hurts I’ll try something else. If I need to miss my tempo run tomorrow, so be it—to be honest, an easy week might be a great thing for me right now. I have a 20-miler coming up next week, so I’ve got to get this thing healed by then.<\/p>\n
After my aborted workout, I limped around the grocery store—to my fellow shoppers with working olfactory receptors, I apologize—to pick up a few ingredients for dinner. On the menu: plantain tostones<\/em> and avocado salad with mango-lime dressing, from Thrive<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just for fun, I put together this little video of me frying (and smashing) the plantains! Trust me, it’s not a professional cooking demonstration. But then again, this isn’t some stuffy professional cooking blog. If I start editing videos and doing multiple takes to pretend there are no mess-ups in my kitchen, do me a favor and start f-bombing the comments section and never reading my blog again!<\/p>\n