Image courtesy of singletracks.com
Saturday was my first attempt at running since I broke my toe 4 months ago. If you missed how the toe broke, check out the XTERRA Trout Creek post and the post-break update.
Eric and I have been doing P90X for over two weeks and we went out of town with our DVDs, fully intending to continue P90X training in the gym we anticipated having access to. However, it turned out that we could not access the gym and the room in which we were staying was too small to train in. We didn’t want to skip a few days, so we decided to give running a try.
At this point in my toe’s life, it is still about twice its normal size and it primarily hurts when I point my toes or put a certain level of pressure on it in just the right place. Pushing off of it while barefoot is also uncomfortable.
Thus, I did not sport my Vibrams for this running experiment, as I’m not even sure I can fit the toe into them comfortably. I put my sneakers on and attached the Nike Sensor to the laces. I fully intended to continue to land on the balls of my feet while in sneakers, and it was only fitting that my return to running be on a trail full of hills and tree roots.
We were staying in Gainesville about half a mile from Sweetwater Preserve near Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. We followed a pleasant, hilly, winding route that was supposed to be 1.75 miles (the west trail). There was a second route (the east trail) that was supposed to be 1.2 miles. We’re pretty sure, based on our times (despite hills) and our Nike sensors, that the parks department mixed up the distances of the trails on their sign.
We actually took a wrong turn during our run, so we ended up going about 1.5 miles. Far from a stellar performance, but between 4 months off, hills that we’re unaccustomed to in Tampa, and my toe, we had no plans to push the envelope.
My toe was fine throughout the run and I maintained the forefoot landing, rather than falling into a heel-strike. However, as soon as I stopped running and we began our 1/2 mile walk back, my toe began to throb. I put ice on it.
The following day, we found ourselves in the same P90X predicament, so we went back to the park for another jog. This time, we added a few detours to increase the distance a bit. We ended at about 2.2 miles and my toe found itself in the same situation: fine while running, throbbing afterwards. I put ice on it again.
It was so much fun to run again! I can’t wait to begin running regularly again, particularly in Vibrams. However, due to the 4 days without P90X access and a few more days of illness, I think we’re going to have to repeat P90X Week 3.
