the shoe is on the other foot

As I was pushing hard over vacation to run and train, my drive led me to a precarious situation. The nail on my big toe was already bruised from a running injury a few months ago and this combined with my passion to waterski met at an interesting intersection. Do not try to put on a pair of water skiis as fast as you can. Or you will find out that the nail will catch the inside of the boot and "flip up". Which mine did.

I am not going to spend this post talking about the strange feelings I felt knowing that my nail was no more. No. I just wanted to write this post because, as with most of these other things I write, it is an interesting experience that runners may encounter some time during their training journey.

As much as I run, this has never happened to me so initially it was a shock. "How could this happen to me?". As the this initial feeling wore off, my next question was "Can I still run?". At the time I didn't know what the medical repercussions of running with a lost nail were so I halted my running as I didn't want to exacerbate my injury. This was about a week or so ago. I subsequently set up an appointment with a cool podiatrist that is also a runner to discuss the fate of my toe.

Turns out my toe is fine and I can still run as normal. It will just take 9+ months for the nail to grow back. I think this experience has taught me a key lesson. No matter what happens during your training, even if it is a small matter related to your health (such as my toe), and you don't quite know what to do you ought to consult an expert. For me, that expert was a podiatrist. Even though my toe was "fine" it put my mind at ease discussing the matter with an expert related to my issue.

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