Broke Toes

My most common post-race pain is very sore quads, which is due in part to not enough strength training, but this time around it was my left foot. The ball of my foot was in so much pain around mile 18-19 that I had a hard time pushing off on my toes. But I finished and didn't notice anything until about 36 hours later when it felt like I was walking on glass. My left index toe (the little piggie next to the biggest piggie) felt like it was crunching every time I stepped on my left foot. Funny that your little toes have such an effect on one's balance.

I went in for my recovery massage the next day but also scheduled an appointment with Dr. Anna to go over my injury. Sure enough I had a stress fracture in my toe. I guess it's easier to do that I thought. You can break a toe just by stubbing it. I just happened to take the brunt of the marathon on my index toe. Fortunately, the rest of me felt AWESOME!

The only way to treat my type of broken toe is to "buddy tape" it to the next toe over. So that's what I'm doing. I took a rest the week after the marathon, wore low heeled shoes and took stairs rather carefully. Now I'm back to just cross training on an elliptical, stair stepper and swimming. Cross training is good...cross training is good...