On Saturday, February 28, 2009, I ran the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth, Texas. This was marathon #3 for me, but the first marathon since having this blog. In the next few posts, I hope to give a detailed account of the events leading up to the race and the race itself. Sure, I would love for you to experience this journey with me along the way, but I really wanted to chronicle this out so that I could remember the marathon.
POST-RACE/PHYSICAL EFFECTS
After getting our medals, another free shirt, and some free food, we headed back to our hotel to shower before heading home.
Obviously, running 26.2 miles had a fairly significant impact on me physically. My muscles hurt, my knees hurt, and my feet hurt.
During training, I had the most problems with my feet. Every marathon I have ran I have lost at least one toenail and this one will be no different. I currently have four toenails that are bruised and discolored. From experience I know for certain that at least one of those four will be lost. That’s not too big of a deal – toenails are overrated.
Another consistent foot problem I had during training was blisters. I never knew what I was going to find every time I took my shoes off after a run. Sometimes there would be nothing. Other times I would have some bad blisters. What I found when I took my shoes after the marathon shocked me.
My right shoe was the first to come off. This is the foot that has the toenail that will definitely come off soon (it became that way after our 20 mile training run). That nail (the second toe) was surrounded on both sides by big blisters. The toe looked very similar to Princess Leia.
Check out the 2nd toe that resembles Princes Leia
I did not think it could get worse than that. Then I took my left shoe off. Here’s what I saw…
One of the girls thought that it looked like a jellybean was growing out of my big toe. Yes, that tumor-like growth coming out of my big toe is a huge blister. Here’s what it looked like 36 hours later AFTER I had popped it two different times…
Blisters and all, this marathon was a great experience. Thanks for letting me share my experience with you. Sorry if I just made you throw up.
I’ve been waiting for this one. GROSS! and just for the other readers, that picture of the “princess Leia” toe doesn’t come close to doing justice to how bad that toe really was. again, GROSS!
uhhh……
p.s.- I refuse to read your injury blog next time you run a marathon.
Wow…well congrats to you and Ben….I have seen worse…a good soaking in epsom salts and if your nail does come off be sure to put triple antibiotic cream not ointment with a fabric bandage…that should help the healing.
Thanks for those gross pictures.
Glad that you survived.
Um, Yuk!
Brittany – got to take the good and the bad. You were AMAZING by the way at your soccer game Friday night. I was super impressed and I don’t really know soccer.
Teresa – thanks for the advice. You are such a mom (and that’s a great thing)!
Hey, nice tips. Perhaps I’ll buy a bottle of beer to that man from that chat who told me to visit your site
[...] #4 COWTOWN MARATHON PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4, & PART 5 – March 2-6, 2009 [...]
I just did a random search for blogs and “cowtown marathon”. I enjoyed reading about your experiences. The 2010 will be my first marathon. Hopefully, next year, someone will look back to my blog and see that I had similar success.