Dr. Scholl's Modeling Contract

I hope you weren't eating while you read this.  If so, I apologize for the nasty photo of my feet. Hell, even if you're not eating, I should apologize.   If you can believe it, my sister has even worse looking feet... and she's not even a runner.  She's got these talons... gross.  However, in her defense, she also doesn't have black toenails on each foot.  

Morton's Toe is when the second toe is longer than the big toe.  It causes the person with it to toe off on the second toe.  Sometimes it might rub on the front of the shoe, or it just fires constantly, flexing, hundreds of time during a run and irritating the nail.  It's hereditary, and when you run, it usually brings on this condition:

NASTY!

Actually, this isn't nearly as bad as it gets.  I've got photos of my feet after marathons where the toes are black, and there are blood blisters as well.  Why does one have photos of their messed up feet? I guess it's just a silly badge of honor thing between me and a buddy of mine.  A "check-out-these-hamburger-feet" kind of thing.  The remedy for such a problem involves a safety pin, the tip heated up over a flame, and then screwed into the nail, being careful not to totally pierce the nail bed underneath.  The heated pin melts the nail, and the pin leaves a little hole in it to lessen the pressure and release the blood that's trapped under the nail.  I should probably do this today, as the one on my right foot is especially sensitive after yesterday's 10 mile time trial run.

Speaking of which, it looked like this:

10 miles

1:17:07

1056 calories

Average 7:43/mile

Heart rate 168/bpm

It was a negative split run, so I was happy about that.  The first half of the run I ran in 39:29 and averaged 7:54/mile and the second half I ran in 37:37 and averaged 7:31/mile.  

All things considered, the cold I caught and the last two weeks off I had, I felt pretty good about this run, but it also showed me how much work I've got ahead of me before Big Sur in two months time.