I never claimed to be a rocket scientist

I never claimed to be a rocket scientist. This is a good thing, because I can be pretty darn stupid sometimes.

Exhibit A

It all started Saturday night. You know, Game Night! (yes, the exclamation point is a necessary and integral part of the Game Night! name). Well, maybe it started last weekend when I determined the Sunday after Game Night! would be a long run day. I put 10 miles on the calendar.

I know I said there would be a moderate amount of alcohol at Game Night!. Well, moderate is a relative term. I still had some Fruit Bomb mixed up from last month’s Game Night!, so decided that would be perfect for this one as well. Fruit Bomb is my own little concoction, consisting of the following:

1 shot Citrus Absolute Vodka
1 shot Peach Absolute Vodka
1 shot Triple Sec
1 shot 99 proof Cherry Schnapps
2 shots 99 proof Banana Schnapps
12 oz. Sierra Mist (or Sprite if you’re a Coke-head)
12 oz. Cranberry juice

Six shots is not really that much, if you spread them out over 5 to 6 hours and include food. I was not falling down drunk, drooling, throwing up, or making a fool of myself. My teammate may have been a little disappointed in the intelligence of my responses toward the end of the evening though. All in all I had a grand time. Once we modified the rules to fit our group, Celebrilicious turned out to be great fun.

I knew Sunday was supposed to be a scorcher, but there was no getting up early to run after staying up late and drinking. Superman and I leisurely puttered around, making coffee around 10, drinking 32 oz. of Crystal Light in addition to my HUGE cup of coffee. I ate a massive fruit salad with banana, cherry, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry. Around 11:30 we were thinking about when to head out when my shirt exchange contact from last weekend’s race texted me, wanting to finally meet up at 12:30. We puttered around a little more, then I headed out to make the exchange.

We didn't hit the pavement until at about 1:00. My legs were ok (at least no pain), but I felt the heat right away. The weather went from high 60's-low 70's to this 80+ degree day, with no chance to acclimatize in between. This was also the first really dry day we’ve had in over 2 weeks, and waves of muggy were coming off the grass. We were dodging puddles because there was nowhere for the water to go. The lawns were fully saturated.

At about 1.4 miles I realized I could not hear my GPS mileage announcement through my headphones, and I couldn’t adjust the volume without stopping the GPS. This was important because I fuel with a watered down Gu/Gatorade mixture every mile. In hindsight I should have just turned the GPS off, set the volume and started it up again. We knew where we were turning around, and it wasn’t like I was setting any speed records. Instead, I got frustrated. Superman agreed to give me his GPS updates, even though we’ve established his GPS is not exactly trustworthy.

By mile 2 I was feeling the heat, and though I refused to acknowledge it, the effects of Game Night! as well. Superman and I discussed when he absolutely had to be back home, and I started contemplating a shorter run. I also started to feel a problem with my shoe.

This particular pair of shoes has never been “right.” They are narrow for my feet, and I made the mistake of believing the salesperson who told me they are supposed to be snug that way. They worked for the first several short runs, so by the time I realized they would be uncomfortable on a long run it was too late to take them back. They never gave me blisters though, until about a month ago when I got caught in a torrential downpour about 4 miles from home. Torrential as in, I could not look up because I was blinded with the sheets of water coming down. Anyway, my shoes (and everything else I had with me) were completely soaked. The shoes were never the same. They felt tighter. They started giving me blisters. I had the mysterious toe bleed during last week’s race.

Knowing it was going to be 80 degrees, I did not want to wear socks. Socks on previous runs had been too hot, and I’m not good with too hot. I tell Superman there’s only so much discomfort I can stand. Knowing the shoes were giving me blisters though, I’d devised protection for my toes. What I hadn’t counted on was the shoe rubbing against the ball of my foot, right were the insert meets the upper.

Around mile 3 I took my shoes off. My feet were overheated and I knew I had blisters. I wear minimalist shoes, have run in Vibrams and barefoot for short periods, and figured I could do several miles this way. Shoeless felt much better. At mile 4, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do 6 more miles barefoot and I wasn't sure I could do 6 more miles, period. We turned around.

Somewhere before 4.5 miles, I gave up. I was so slow, Superman was walking next to me. I was exhausted and frustrated. We still had several miles to cover to get home though. After walking barefoot for a while, I realized my feet hurt. I put my shoes back on, but that hurt as well. I took them off and started walking on the grass. This felt good, especially since the grass was so saturated.

This is what I found when I got home. You can't see the blisters from the shoes on the side of the ball of each foot. I didn’t realize the extent of the damage until today, when I found blisters on the 2nd toe of each foot. The left is worse than the right, with a deep blister across the top of the ball of my foot. I couldn’t walk on it last night. Today is much better.

I’ve cleaned them all up and put blister band-aids on. The tape around my foot is to keep those band-aids on, as my experience has been they roll and come off before I’m ready. I'd already ordered new shoes Saturday, which should be here tomorrow or Wednesday. I have to heal and break those in before Sunday, when I run my make-up marathon. I hope it’s not a sweltering 80 degrees, though the temps have gone up to mid-70’s from the high 60’s they were predicting the last time I checked. Oh, and it’s supposed to rain...