Instead of running two miles this morning, as I had intended, I’m writing this blog.
Last night, I innocently stubbed my toe on a step. Pain shot through the joint at which the base of my toe meets the ball of my foot. This spot has ached on and off for a year, with the last major flare-up about a year ago when I ran for the first time after getting home from Dublin. About a half-mile in, I had to stop and limp home. Further Internet research leads me to believe I’ve developed a bunion.
A freaking bunion.
The redness on the side of the foot, pain right where the pain is expected and I’m noticing my toe make a slight angle to the left.
This makes sense to me. My toes have always been messed up, having had somewhere around 10 procedures performed on each side of each of my big toes for ingrown toenails when I was younger, resulting in a narrow nail bed in the middle of my chubby toes.
The toe is just the latest in a string of injuries.
Lately, my left hip and lower back have been hurting. My back pain has since settled into a dull ache on the lower left side. But my hip has flared up again.
In 2009, I was told I have “hip snapping syndrome.” When the hip moves around the joint, it makes a popping noise due to a muscle or a tendon moving abnormally over a bone. I was suffering lots of discomfort in my left hip. Mostly, this pain was caused my doing lots of kicking due to my karate practice. I really don’t know how I did 500 front kicks for my black belt test, because I start to feel pain when I get to 50 anymore.
I went to an orthopedic doctor and performed several therapy sessions throughout the summer using different kinds of stretches. I probably should’ve kept up with the stretches, but I neglected them with school. My hip never really bothered me when I ran (or rode my bike), but I’m thinking it’s starting to wear down a little bit now since I’ve been doing more of both lately.
The hip and back pain I can deal with as long as I keep readjusting myself. Doing heavy lifting at a grocery store isn’t going to help either, but I’m trying to pay attention to how I left heavy items now.
But the toe pain, of all things, it’s what’s keeping me down for today. I was able to ride my bike last night, but didn’t want to use those muscles again this morning.
Hopefully Wednesday will be better, both since I have to work for nearly eight hours and since I’ll need to run five days in a row to keep my goal for the week.