Toe No!!!

So when I ran the half marathon in November, I thought I would be proactive about my blisters on my feet.    The two last toes on my right foot tend to fold under my other toes and make really bad blisters when I walk at any distance.   Both those toes were already recovering from blisters from my training when I got to Vegas for the half.

I didn’t do a whole lot of training once I got there and by that I mean none at all, so I didn’t think much about my feet the first few days.

When the race finally came up I decided to nip the blisters that I always get in the bud and wrap my two little toes in blister band aids.  You know, the kind that are made of some sort of cushy plastic, but have no pad in the middle, it’s just a huge thing of sticky cushy plastic.  I put one on each of my little toes on my right foot.

Honestly, I felt I had done a great job.  The last time I ran this race, I felt a blister pop on both those toes by mile 8 and every step was agony after that.

This time, I felt like something happened around mile twelve and it hurt after that but I was almost at the finish at that point.  I sooooo didn’t care.

Rob met me at that finish line and led me back up to our hotel room at the Flamingo.  As we got to the room he realized he had forgotten his hotel room key and would have to go back downstairs to get a replacement.  I didn’t care, but I told him I was sitting down in the hallway and taking off my shoes.  He said no problem and disappeared to go get his new key.

As I took of my shoes and socks, the first thing I noticed was that the two blister band aids I had put on my two little toes on my right foot had FUSED TOGETHER.   I had to pull the plastic apart and it was painful.  As I pulled most of the band aid off my pinky toe I noticed there was a huge blood blister there and the two nail seemed “squishy”.  It freaked me out so I stopped playing with it because I had never had anything like that happen before.

Eventually Rob got back up and we went into the room.

I soaked in a tub but tried not to submerge that foot, just in case, and we went to bed.

The rest of the trip I wore flip flops and was very careful about that toe.  Eventually, the swelling went down and it appeared to be okay but something told me that the toenail wasn’t quite right.

It’s been a month now since the marathon and just recently the skin started to peal around that nail.  I have worn flip flops constantly  since the race but the last two days I had social obligations.  A Christmas party and a Christmas play, so I wore socks and very loose fitting boots.

This morning, I noticed as I was waking that my pinkie toe was hurting when I flexed my toe.  I finally took a good look and…yup, I’m going to lose this nail.  Most of it is already broken off but it is hanging on by a very small thread and I am not willing to break that off.

The whole thing FREAKS ME OUT!  I’ve never had this happen before and it’s a very skeevy kinda thing.

So I have put it back on with a band aid to keep it where it should be.

All of my friends who run marathons have told me this is very normal and it will grow back and blah blah blah, but damn!!  Freaky!!!!