Like Sand in Your Underwear...

...I am irritated (and irritating, it is a talent)...with myself.  I am not new to running.  I am not new to injuries.  I am not mentally deficient however, one has to wonder why anyone with half a brain would run for 6 months on an injury.  That silly metatarsal has gone from being annoying and a bit painful to all out hurting to stand on  and now my knee hurts.  ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I HATE injuries.  You know what I dislike more?  When I could have prevented it. 

A quick recap: At Lone Ranger I really hosed up my feet.  I ran until somehow I bruised the soles of my feet, they hurt beyond what I can describe.  The podiatrist there (yes they had one on hand, hummmmmm, that maybe should have been a sign to me as to what was to come) said your feet are messed up if you keep running (if somehow you can) you are risking stress fractures if you don't already have them.  This for most people would have been a clear sign to stop but, NOOOOOOO!!!!! I had put in a ton of time and I wasn't about to stop because some silly dude who doesn't run and spent years in school studying feet tells me too.  That would be way to obvious and rational.  Nooooo.  Like Robert Frost, I like to take the road less traveled so I went back out on the course, well...sort of...if you count walking and crawling as racing.  So any who, this will come as a shocker to all of you but, this race led to an issue with my MH1 (Metatarsal Head 1). 

I know what you are thinking...but, you took time off after so it healed right?   Ummmmm...well...not so much.  Unless you count finding another 100 miler to run and jumping into another round of training, if you do count that then, yes, I rested, and I did it well. 

I then proceeded to run another 6 months on this MH1.  I ran one 100 miler and two marathons with the issue and of course trained for a 50 miler.  And here I sit 3wks out from my 50 mile race with a MH1 issue and now some sort of knee issue.  Oh yes I somehow managed to get the foot pain to travel up to my knee.  I know... I am good, you don't have to tell me. 

I am done running!

What I meant  by that is that I am taking some time off.  I am not running at all on this foot or knee until both feel totally normal and then I am easing back into it.  Well, except for...I do plan to run Rocky.  So really I am hoping that with 3.5 weeks off the foot and knee can fix themselves.  I really want to run Rocky even if it isn't my fastest.  I want to run it.  But, more than I want to run Rocky I want to have my knee and foot back to normal.  This is ridiculous.  I let one small injury spiral out of control because I didn't have the wisdom to take some time off.  So, I guess if the foot and knee aren't feeling better in 3 weeks I will have a tough decision to make.  Ughhhhh... I think I will ignore that possibility for the moment.

Here is the funny part of all of this.  I have needed time off from running mentally for months now but, haven't wanted to mess up any training.  So while I was running on this beat up foot I didn't even want to be out there.  I wanted to run just didn't feel like doing ultra training.  Sometimes all the miles get to me.  80-100 mile weeks are a lot of work.  So for now I am taking a break.  I might cross train, I might not. 

Any bets on how long I last??? :)

Happy Running! Hope you are all injury free and running with Joy.