Rock, Paper, Scissors, Toe....who wins??

We all know the rules to this game but who wins when you throw a fourth player, my toe, into the mix.  This is a story about an experience that I had with this very game this last week. The answer, as much as I regret to say this, is rock. I know, pretty obvious, but you never know when an underdog will prevail. In this instance, the underdog was my left, big toe and it did not prevail. This past Wednesday morning, on my morning jaunt thru the canal, I decided I wanted to do a little speed work. About 4 miles in, after a 5 minute stint at about 6:15-6:30 per mile pace, I decided that my throat needed a little saturation. As I begin the usually easy process of taking a drink of water (while running mind you), I caught my right foot on a rock. Because I do not like tumbling in the cactus and rocks I did my best to try to catch myself. One way the body naturally does this is to try to “run out” of the trip. So this is what I started to do but it wasn’t long (like .000015 seconds (just a guestimate)) that I realized that I was going down. So….I just let it happen. After dusting myself off and picking up my now muddy water bottle, I felt a slight twinge in my left toe. Thinking that I only stubbed it badly and possibly just bent the toenail back, I continue the remaining two miles back to the bike trail. This is where I typically finish my run with a 1-1.5 mile barefoot run. Upon removing my socks and shoes I realized that what I thought was a slight bending back of the toenail, was actually a complete removal of the toenail. Looked a little something like this….

Obviously I wasn’t about to put my socks and shoes back on so I just ran home that way. Leaving quite the odd looking foot prints along the way. So….the moral of this story is…don’t always bet on the underdog, or the big toe. The rock is typically going to win this one. On a better note….I finally bought some new running shoes and I think the reason I had this little mishap is because the old shoes knew that it was their last time out on the trails with me. My old Sauconys were good to me though. You can see (pic below) that they got some good use. This is the first shoe that I have literally ran the tread off of. 

Running the tread off

I am now comfortably enjoying the New Balance MT101 and am pretty sure I am love with those shoes. I have one week to get them broken in on some desert trails and then I am venturing back to Virginia for a week where I will have a few dates with trails there.

Dreaming of trail runs….Jog on mates!