I have potatoes for feet.
That kind of statement probably requires explanation. The story starts when I woke up this morning and my ankles felt incredibly stiff – like the Tin Man before Dorothy found him. An annoying ache to be sure, but nothing I haven’t dealt with in the past after hard training sessions.
That said, combined with having to simply survive yesterday’s LSD run, I made the decision to take today off from training. The schedule called for a 5 mile easy pace run – just a short run to build the base, which I already have. More miles are always good, but I can spare a few at this point in the program.
So naturally, that meant I needed to go out and have a Hopple Popple and pancakes at the Original Pancake House. What? Doesn’t everybody do this?
But breakfast logic aside, we get to how I came to have tubers at the ends of my legs…
I knew something might be up when I put on my casual shoes and it felt like I was wearing two pairs of socks. But I chalked it up to hypersensitivity because I was training so hard recently. So I had my Hopple Popple, drank my industrial strength coffee, and went about my day.
But it wasn’t until Stacy got back from Columbus that the story really continues. After filling me in on how the family is doing, we went to have catfish (the only good part about Lent!) for lunch.
Upon returning home, I told my lovely wife about how my feet ached. She told me to take off my socks and we found this…
My feet were swollen like someone had stuck a bicycle pump in them and went to town. I was stuck somewhere between concern and amazement. Suddenly, the decision to not run today seemed wise and proper.
Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day, and I am going to heed that. The last thing I need now is to injure myself because I’m too damn stubborn to admit my body has limits.
On the positive side, the sun remembered that Toledo exists and paid us a visit. People were out on the metropark trails and I can’t wait to join them. Now, I don’t want to jinx anything… but we could soon see the end of running on the ludicrous 1/16mi YMCA track! Yay!