AAAARGH INGROWN TOENAIL BAAAAAAAAAARGH

BROTHER OF CHRIST MY RIGHT BIG TOE HURTS SO MUCH

Tuesday morning- A light 3.75 mile loop around Falls Church in high humidity, but a touch of breeze. Not terrible.

Tuesday evening- I ventured to TC Williams High School to talk to the NOVA track club about the 8k, and joined in a workout. A fellow named Dave was planning some ambitious 4x8 and 4x4, so I was game to join him. Unfortunately, I missed a bus that would have gotten me to the track with more time to spare, and I wound up doing one 400 of a warmup before talking to everyone about the race, then another, faster, 400 while everyone was doing strides. It was cooler, probably 80, a nice change from Monday. With a half mile under my belt, I joined Dave with the plan of running some 2:30s. First one- 2:29. Then 2:28, then 2:26. As I ran the third, I started to cramp up, likely from the bare-bones warmup. I cut the fourth 800 off at 400 (75), then ran three 400s (74,73,72) before starting a cooldown. When I switched into trainers, my big toes started throbbing. It was miserable. I got a ride home from this fellow, Mike, and went to work submerging my left foot in warm water and cutting back the nail as much as possible.

Wednesday morning- I woke up with the headache that comes from waking too early when you really haven't had enough sleep. It was medium long run day, and I had 13 miles to go before I got to work. I started out slowly, shuffling down the W&OD trail, with hopes of holding any effort until I reached the Custis Trail, but I was already suffering 3.5 miles in. I pushed decently hard against the pain in my right toe, my fatigue and the humidity. When I got to the Mt. Vernon trail, I stopped and wrung out my socks. The last four miles were pretty unpleasant, but once I hit the mall I was able to gut it out.