I had a pretty uneventful Friday to my standards, or anybody's standards really. I literally did nothing but get ready for the +New England Patriots preseason opener with the +Philadelphia Eagles. I read articles and watched interviews so I had a better grasp of who all was playing and what to expect. I'm a diehard Pats fan, so my excitement level was through the roof. I had cereal, four corn dogs, and then went and got a double cheeseburger and fries combo for the game. During the game I had a whole bag of popcorn. Couple all that with a few sodas and I had racks on racks on racks of bad calories that day.
Because +NFL Network decided to put the +Dallas Cowboys and +Oakland Raiders game on before the Pats game was over, I made my move...to the high school track for a 11:30 pm run. When I pulled up, I thought to myself "This is ridiculous and you're an idiot for running this late. You're going to get at the very least robbed, but more than likely you're getting murdered." So I honestly took all the valuable stuff in my car to the track with me and put it on a bench. Hopefully the would be drug dealers and shady people would just bust my car up thinking I parked it there and went on a trip with someone else.
I usually wear headphones when I run, but I wanted to hear everything because of this article about how running without gadgets every now and again is great for you. (They were right! I ran my fastest 5k!) But I didn't want to just hear my breathing and how my feet were sounding when landing, I also wanted to make sure a car wasn't pulling up or something was coming to attack me. (I did hear something: bats. Coming from an area of the track with the least amount of light. I made sure to run that corner every single time as fast as possible.) But thankfully, nothing ever attacked me from the woods or from the road.
After about a mile, I began to think that it was possible to set a personal record time for my 5k because I actually felt really good. I was used to going to Gold's Gym that late after work and running on the treadmill while watching a movie in the studio. After about 2.5 miles, I started to realize something was going on in my shoe. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was making the orthotics in my right shoe feel like it was coming out of place. 3.1 miles in, I stopped and got some Gatorade. It was right around midnight and I still felt pretty fresh, so I got back to running. I thought my longest run ever was 5.21 miles, so I stopped at 5.25, only to realize after ending the run that it was actually 5.31, so I missed a personal best there. I definitely could've gone another mile if I wanted to, but I was safe and pressed my luck enough. So I stopped running, stretched for about 10 minutes and headed home to shower.
When I got home and took my shoes off in the bathroom, I looked at my sock and the whole top of it was covered in something red. I thought there might've been something that busted in the shoe like a piece of fruit (I know, fruit? Really?!) because I didn't feel any pain. I took the sock off and my toes were covered in blood. I took the shower, still not feeling any pain, cleaned off my feet really well with a rag, got out, dried off, etc. etc. The sharpness of my toenails where I didn't round them off all the way had cut through the skin of two of my toes. How this happens to me, I don't know.
But there are three morals to this story. Number one: don't run in dark places in the middle of nowhere at night. It's scary. Not even a rape whistle would help you. (I did run faster though, so it might be something to this approach). Number two: If it's not raining and you feel something squishy in your shoe, it's probably blood. Number three: Round off your toenails! They are incredibly sharp and will tear through skin!
Once again, thanks for reading!
Andy
No comments:
Post a Comment