Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Killing a Plantar Wart

I've had a wart on the ball of my left foot for like 2 years. I treat it for a while, think it's dead, and then it comes back. With being injured and not running 2 weeks ago, I figured I'd really up my "wart killing game." I froze it maybe 2.5 weeks ago, and then still used the liquid to burn it off along with the little "medicated discs" overnight. The roots of the wart started dying and turing brown:

It's hard to tell, but that's quite a DIVOT in my foot.

I was still treating it for a few days after that photo, but it got REALLY sore for about 2 days last week - the liquid acid used to treat it was being put on thin skin! So I stopped treating it for a few days to let it heal up, and then it looked like this:

Pretty sure that's just healthy skin that's re-healing now.

After a few more days, it really hadn't changed:

To be safe, I did freeze it again 2 days ago (shortly after that last photo was taken), so hopefully it's been FULLY sent to hell! I'll check back in in a few weeks...

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Losing a Toenail

I showed a SUPER SORE looking toenail back in early February after an icy run with lots of turns. It SUCKED.

Last week, I was clipping my toenails, and that toenail felt... different....

Looking horrible...


... oh HI THERE!

So off it came. There was a thin nail growing in its place. But this fella went into the trash:

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"Poopy" Run... Yes, It's What You Think...

I left out some details from my last post about my recent long run.

It was the day after the Super Bowl, and I may have consumed the majority of a jar of queso. This is important for later.

My run went well (as I posted about), but I felt a fart brewing that I was afraid I couldn't trust somewhere near the middle of it. It went away quickly. And it came back as I started my cool down with about 2.5 miles to go. That feeling came and went a few times, but I figured I'd make it home.

But then it started getting worse. Now I KNEW I wasn't going to make it. I met a pair of runners and then saw no one else. I rounded a corner (RIGHT next to the house of a family I know from my son's school) and darted across the road into a little over-grown area as my sphincter was losing its battle. I got my shorts down as quick as I could and left a pile in the snow. I was squatted there in the dark as 2 cars went by, but no one could see me (THANK GOD). It was a soft pile, and I didn't have much left on my cheeks - the final mile home was just a little squishy, but not bad. I got in the house and cleaned up right away:

Yes, that's the inside of my shorts as I hit the basement bathroom. NOT CLEAN, but not horrible either.


Easy to spot the UNEXPECTED DETOUR on my Garmin.


Text exchange with my wife later that morning.

I was running yesterday with my cell phone, and at the last moment, I smirked and thought "I wonder if *IT* is still there from 2 days ago..." I ran across the road, and I found my foot prints and a "pile" that had melted its way farther into the snow because of the sun we've had the last few days:

I'm NOT editing this photo to make things any clearer! YOU'RE WELCOME.

Also, notice my feet were facing the road, so I wasn't mooning the cars as they passed. I have SOME dignity. Behind me was a stone wall outside of a fancy country club, so no one saw anything inappropriate.

Oh, and there appears to be fresh dog tracks to the right. Someone's dog got a sniffer full of something unpleasant...

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Outdoor Long Run and NASTY TOE!

We had a snowy December where I didn't do any long runs outside because of potential slippage. My last long run outside was before Thanksgiving!! But it was 16 degrees and calm on Monday morning, so I wanted to go out.

The only issue was that we just had 1-2 inches of snow, so I needed to find a clear route. I took what I learned on my 2 other outdoor runs last week and decided to run around the St. Thomas campus because they usually clear their sidewalks NICELY. And I'm also still fighting with this butt injury, so I didn't want to be 3 miles from home and realize I had to stop running. So laps around St. Thomas it was! I'd never be more than 1 mile from home, and I'd have decent footing.

Clear in spots, but a lot of this.


I could often run on the far edge and keep my footing a bit better.

I wiped out rounding a corner just after a 2 mile warm-up right as I was picking up the pace for 4-6 miles. But it wasn't hard. I tried to hit River Road, but it was snow-packed and slow. After a few laps around campus, I took off down Summit, but that was snow-packed and slow as well - I thought that because they were "fancy" homes that they'd take better care of their public sidewalks, but they didn't (they weren't bad, but my sidewalk was much clearer than any of those).

I finished 6 hard miles around campus before easing up for a 2 mile cool-down. Here's my route, and note that those numbers are all half-mile splits, so notice all the laps around St. Thomas:

See split #10 to the east down Summit Ave? That was me trying to break up the monotony of looping around campus, but I found some slower sidewalks as you can see in the middle of the "harder miles" in my pace chart:

The dip around 33 mins was heading off campus.

Then one of my toes started to ache more and more as the day went on. It was PERFECT when starting the run, but something about the slippage on the snow and all of the turning made a big blood blister develop underneath. It looked like this in the evening:

I sterilized a needle and poked it just after taking that photo. It didn't work at first, so I tried another poke 1/8" to the side, and it squirt lots of blood. My youngest watched in slight horror.

I might just hit the treadmill this morning for some easy miles on this sore toe!

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Busted Pinky Update

In mid-November, I fell and busted open my pinky nail as I was cooling down after an interval workout at the track.

About 5 days after the bloody fall, it looked like this:

And then a few days later, the scab fell off as well as the TINY bit of nail at the end:

Looks good! But this was the most annoying stage as it caught on everything!

At the end of Nov (about 2 weeks after it happened), it looked like this:

Also showing what's left of my palm scrape.

And then more recently (nearly a month after it happened), it just looks like I have a semi-weird pinky nail:

Check out this post for some gnarly photos of it right after it happened.

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Busting My Pinky on a Run

I took a tumble at the end of yesterday's workout.

I was running on some sidewalks that weren't super familiar to me before sunrise. I caught a big lip in the sidewalk (like what happens when a nearby tree pushes part of the sidewalk up) that was hidden under leaves. I went down kinda hard. It was near the end of my workout (cooling down after intervals), so I was tired and I had my mittens off as I was hot, so nothing cushioned my hands as I fell.

I skidded a little across the sidewalk. Because it was like 35 degrees and my hands were a bit chilly, I didn't know how much damage I had done because I couldn't feel them all that well anyway. It could have been a LOT worse, as I got home and just had a very sore palm (this should bruise nicely) and a bloody pinky:

I couldn't tell what was up with my pinky right away. Did I tear off some of the nail? I couldn't tell:

But after cleaning it, I saw that I punched a hole right in the MIDDLE of my pinky nail! It didn't tear the nail from the top (which would have been worse) but somehow just ripped open right in the middle:

I have a quarter-size abrasion on my right knee to go along with it. And when I got home, my wife saw that I had a dirty back, so I somehow rolled around as well. But it could have been worse! If you're running in the dark, stick to well-lit areas on sidewalks that you know well! Especially when all the leaves have all just leapt from the trees!

Back with some details of that workout shortly.

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Beat-Up Toes

I shared a photo of a pair of blood blisters at the end of my TC 10 Mile race report a week ago - one was from a long run weeks before, and one was new (and sore) from the 10 Mile.

A few days later, they both looked like this:

The "old" one had drained, and the new one was sore.

And then today (7 days post-race), the new one still looks dark:

I'll have to drain that and pull it off shortly. Gross.

Back with some race photos from my 2 recent races shortly!

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LONG and HARD

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Last week was my last LONG and HARD run for the TC 10 Mile. I ran easier for 2.5 miles, picked up a pace a bit as a "building" mile for the next mile (6:42), and then tried to descend the following 5 miles.

It was a warm morning: mid-70s and humid before sunrise SUCKS in Minnesota in mid-September. I came to terms with that by throwing any thoughts of fast splits out the window. I figured I'd still try to negative split the run, but I'd just be OK with the times being slower.

I sweated through it, and my "5 descending miles" only lasted through 4.5 miles, but they descended: 6:24, 6:22, 6:19, 6:18, and then a final half mile of 2:57 (which SHOCKED me as I was dead). Ideally (on a NOT hot and humid run), I'd be shooting for these to starting around 6:15 and dropping under 6:00 quickly.

My toe was sore afterwards, and it looked like this:

Oww.

And then 2 days ago, it didn't look much better:

This seems to happen on hot and sweaty runs. Dang.

Well, happy to have that workout done, even if I did have to cut the hard miles a half mile short.

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Updated Bike Crash Bruising

Ten days ago was the middle of a big week of biking that ended in a bike crash. I posted the details of my rides, along with the "fresh wounds." And I ended that post with what my pelvis and thigh looked like just over 24 hours after crashing:

Another day later, I started having more yellowing:

Also a WEIRD bruise on my palm and wrist from catching myself! Yikes.
I think I got real lucky that I didn't hurt myself more.

And then a day after that, I think my bruising was at PEAK yellow:

Tuesday afternoon after my Saturday morning crash.

Now on Monday (9 days post-crash), it all just looks like a blob. It's nearly healed! What a way to end my 4 weeks of biking over 400 miles.

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Big Week of Biking That Ended with a BIKE CRASH

I was "up north" with family last week. So I didn't get in my normal upper body work, got in some lesser lower body work, did just a LITTLE core, had pretty normal runs, and REALLY BIKED A LOT. Noteworthy workouts:

• Tues, Aug 5: longest ride in 16 years! I went out to hopefully break 50 miles. I hadn't done that with any of my Garmins - it was "pre Garmin" when I last went over 46 miles! I ended up keeping it above 20 mph for those 50 miles, and then did an extra 4+ miles easier as a cool down!

Bike trail out of Alexandria.


Fields in the middle of nowhere.


Longest ride! Note the 7 mph wind from the SE, and the 20.4 mph ave.


5-mile splits: 10 miles "in town," and then 20 miles to the west, and 20 miles back!

I didn't think there was a breeze out there, and sure didn't expect it to be from the EAST (which is strange in MN). So I was depressed when I hit my turn-around at mile 30 with a 21.0 mph ave and then started working harder into the wind as I was already pooped. I made it back only letting it drop to 20.4 mph overall.

• Thurs, Aug 7: moderate mid-distance ride. I had a saddle sore pop up from that long run at the "base" of my left testicle. So I wasn't going to go nuts (pun intended) on this ride. It was just a "ride." I was also planning a hard run the next day, so I didn't want to be totally fried.

Foggy spots!


There were some fun views in the fog!...


... and some places where I biked into nothingness.


An angry garter snake on my way back.


33 miles of randomness.

• Fri, Aug 8: 4 mile tempo run. This was a bit of a failed workout. I didn't quite make it all 4 miles. I had to put this run off by about 2 hours because a thunderstorm was wrapping up. I'd never seen so many whitecaps on the lake when I took off for my run:

WINDY!


Damp trails.

I did a 1 mile warm-up, and then went straight into 4 hard descending miles. At least, that was the plan. The first 2 miles of those were with the wind, and they were good: 5:59 and 5:58. Then I turned into the breeze and tried to keep it up. Mile 3 was 6:02 which wasn't horrible into the wind, but then the wind hit me more. In the final mile, my first half-mile split was 3:04 (my slowest half-mile split all workout), and then I found myself just stopping when I had 0.23 miles to go. Damn it. I had hit the wall.

Effort started at split #2 (lower right), hit the turn-around at
split #6 (upper left), and PLANNED to get back to that split #2 again.
But stopped my Garmin at split #10 before getting there.


Tempo, ending a bit before it should have.

So that tempo effort was 3.77 miles in 22:37, or 6:01/mile pace. Not the sub-6:00 pace I was hoping for. Oh well.

• Sat, Aug 9: 30 mile bike with 4x4 mile intervals, AND BIKE CRASH. The intervals went fine. There was a slight wind in my face for #1 and #3, so those were a bit slow, and #2 and #4 were a bit fast. I looked at my average half-way into each interval to try to up the pace, and in the end, I was all about what my mph was for each split:

#1: 11:26, 21.0 mph (21.2 halfway)

#2: 10:43, 22.4 mph (22.1 halfway)

#3: 11:14, 21.3 mph (21.2 halfway)

#4: 10:11, 23.6 mph (22.9 halfway)

I was happy with keeping #3 faster than #1, and then really hammering for #4 to get a fast split!

I was cooling down in town, when I turned to cross a road. I didn't see the curb correctly (I thought it was a "ramp" and not a big curb) and tried to correct at the last second - my brain doesn't always work right when it's tired after a hard workout. I ended up skidding out across some asphalt and into the grass when I probably could have just gone the "wrong" way for 50 feet and turned around with no incident, but I was trying to hard to make a corner that I was about to miss. Damn it.

My hand was gushing blood from a deep little wound on the lower middle:

Intervals between spits 8 and 9 on this map...


... with the upper right being where I crashed before "limping" home on my bike.

I was OK. My bike was OK. I showered off to find the extent of my injuries. Afterwards, I documented my scrapes in the bathroom:

Pelvis and thigh - the 2nd sorest part on my body.


Inside left knee. Outside of my knee was beat up too, and
this was the sorest joint. Hoping I didn't really hurt something.


Scuff on my ankle.


Now cleaned puncture on my hand, and a tiny blood blister on my thumb.


Left elbow.

The following afternoon (Sunday), my wife took this photo at home of my pelvis and thigh building some nice bruising:

The GOOD NEWS is that I went for a run yesterday and my knee was fine! I figured it would be, but I was a bit nervous. WHEW!!

After a big bike month last month and having the previous 2 weeks with 100+ bike miles each, I now had a 3rd week in a row with over 100 bike miles! 103.81 miles, 112.31 miles, and now 118.51 miles "up north" on these bike trails!

This week will have fewer miles in the saddle. It's about time for some rest. :)

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