My Toenail is Purple (and Week 5 in Reverse)

Look, it's my foot!  Sorry my foot is so gross, but a picture is better than me trying to describe what my foot looks like (it's, well, foot-y…).  On Thursday, I noticed that the 2nd toe on my right foot was a little sore, so I whipped off my shoes and socks to look at it.  Oh, and I was in my office at the time, so my officemate came in and saw me holding my foot up to my face.  There was a small (about 10% of the toenail area) section that was faintly purple.  As you can see, it's a lot more purple.  My guess is that I did this while doing my hill repeats on Wednesday.

The most likely outcome of this is that I'm going to lose the toenail.  Sounds gross (and it is, a little), but apparently it is a common thing among runners.  When the toe impacts the inside of your shoe too much, you damage it and then the toenail dies.  This will progress over the next few weeks, and then the nail will fall off.  I feel like a real runner now.

As for the Week in Reverse, I'm going to tone it down a bit from now on to spare you the boring details. I'll just make mention of some highlights and other interesting things that happen.  I've started keeping an online training log at Runner's World, so you can get the nitty gritty details there.  (I'm going to post a review of their training log in the next few days, so stay tuned.)

Sunday, April 4:  8 miles, 1:07:49.  It had been a long Triduum, with many late nights, and the Vigil was especially tiring, so this run should have been slow, and painful.  I went for the run in the afternoon, so it was much warmer than I was used to.  It started fast, and I wondered if I could keep the pace going.  I did.  Then I turned around and faced the wind, and wondered if I could keep the pace going.  I did.  When I got back, I calculated my pace to by 8:30/mile.  Let me say that again: 8:30/mile for an 8 mile run!  Holy moly!  It was comfortable pace for me, so all I can say is that this speed work is really working.  I'm becoming much more confident that I can get a sub-4 hour marathon this year.

Wednesday, March 31: 5 x Hill.  An increase of 1 repeat this time.  This workout was so tough, it killed a toenail (see above).

Tuesday, March 30: 5 miles at 9:00/mile pace.  Another "easy" run at a surprisingly fast pace.  I'm becoming fast again!

So there are the highlights.  Stay tuned for more pictures of my toe!