3 Days Later: Costume Party Run

Well, I'll be the first to admit that CPR was a bust in terms of racing. I hadn't trained properly, I hadn't eaten properly, and quite frankly I'm lucky that I was able to finish that race at all. I did pay the price, however, in terms of blistering.

Three days later and I am just barely back to my normal walking capabilities. Fair warning, the rest of this post isn't for the faint-at-heart when it comes to blister pictures.
Sunday night was an interesting night of cell phone photography and intensely stiff blistered-foot hobbling. Since I was dog sitting at a client's home from July 4th until July 14th, unwinding from this race was really interesting.

First and foremost, I forgot my lancing supplies at home, so I had to figure out what on earth I was going to use on some of the worst blisters I'd had in years. (Yes, I have lancing supplies including a few needles, medical scissors, gauze, etc.) Turns out, I had my embroidery kit with me and ended up playing Doctor Tyler with my sharps and dead needles from that kit. I haven't been able to look at my craft blog the same way since. I even went so far as to name the big one on my right foot Hector. As it would turn out with some medical attention, Hector was actually a twin to the other blister under my big toe, but I have continued to call the entire mess Hector despite its status changes.

Right Foot Before Second Lancing on Sunday

It took me two needle lancings and finally a full force nip-n-drain with my sharps to finally get all the fluid out of Hector and friend. They were by far some of the largest blisters I've ever worked up during a run and also some of the most painful. Until CPR, I had never blistered between my toes and after just checking the remaining skin between my index and middle toes is still webbed. Notice the weird wiggly lines, by the way? I'm pretty sure that's deep skin which has detached and started to pull from the inside. It does not feel great even after draining for three days.

I have to admit that my right foot did not photograph well, no matter how hard I tried, but it suffered a much different fate. Around Mile 8, my left shoe started squelching. I have no other word to describe it, but any person who has ever experienced a wet shoe knows the noise. I wasn't sure at the time what was causing the squelch, but Claudia and I were pretty sure that I had a blister had popped somewhere along our last few miles and was making its presence known. Turns out that we were right. During the first eight or so miles of our race, my left heel had decided to (a) appear and (b) rub itself into a friction burn/blister from hell. It didn't hurt until I took my running shoes and socks off. Once I did, that sucker decided to STING and somehow when it opened up, it refused to close again, creating a perpetual ooze that lasted for nearly twenty-four hours before drying out. It was painful. It was gross and I wish I had my camera available because for the last forty-eight hours it's been purple with either friction burns under the skin, bruising/bleeding, or both. I'm just glad it stopped oozing, though, because that was a rather unpleasant experience. I had no band-aids available to me in the house I was sitting and I spent the majority of my post-race Sunday holding TP to my left foot.

As to everything else, I have to admit I was a bit stiff, but not very sore otherwise after this race. The only pain that I felt was caused by my post-blister waddling and went away as soon as I was able to walk like a normal human being again. As of today, Wednesday, I would say that I'm back to 100% again and plan on doing and easy two to three miles tomorrow. If it happens, this blog will be the first to know about it.