Close call on injury

The title of this post projects a bit more alarm than the news is worth, but it's true I have an injury that suddenly on Wednesday threatened my ability to run the marathon on Saturday.

Several weeks back I broke the toenail on my right big toe. I can't remember how I did it, but it broke way back on the left side. When it did, apparently a little bit of the broken edge stabbed the skin under the nail, and over a long period of time - months, really - began to inflame the toe.

For weeks I felt no pain from the broken nail, but then beginning last week the toe started to feel a little sore. I attributed the soreness to a switch to new inserts, and since the discomfort was slight, I really didn't give it much thought. I never even look at my toe.

Then over the weekend I finally inspected the site, and discovered the area around where the nail broke was discolored and the toe was red. I cleaned it, treated it with antibiotics and hoped for the best. Then on Wednesday morning the toe was noticeably worse, and as the day wore on I was enduring considerable pain. I called the foot doctor, and he got me in Wednesday afternoon.

The doc cut away as much of the nail as he could, and said that while the toe was severely inflamed, there was no widespread infection. He suggested numbing the toe and cutting further to make sure there were no other problems, but when I asked him what kind of shape I'd be in for a marathon on Saturday, he came up with another plan. We'd stop where we were, because he thought he might have gotten all the broken nail, get on an antibiotic, and then get together next week if there was still a problem.

I'm happy to say that as of this morning  the toe is much better, and now I think I should be fine from that standpoint on Saturday.

So, for the first time in a long time I almost made it all the way through the entire training schedule without medical assistance. At least this time the problem wasn't caused by over-training.