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This Little Piggy
By Monique Cole
Most
traffic accidents occur close to home. Apparently - for me anyway
- this also holds true for running injuries.
I broke my left big toe late last spring
and I wish I could say it happened while doing something exciting.
Blazing down Longs Peak, for example, or tripping on coral while
running barefoot on the beach. Instead, I fractured the pesky
metatarsal running up the stairs from my basement home office.
You see, the diaper service truck had
just pulled up the driveway and the thought of holding onto that
bucket 'o stench for another week added a sense of urgency to
my ascent. My stockinged foot slipped and I racked my toes across
the step. Cursing and limping, I courageously fetched the diapers
and traded them for some decidedly cleaner ones. Only after the
deliveryman left did I glance down at my foot.
Something obviously was amiss. Instead
of pointing ahead as usual, my left big toe was grotesquely sticking
straight up. "Dislocated," I diagnosed hopefully, giving
it a hard tug that returned it - more or less - to its usual
position.
"Better to have stubbed your little
toe, in future," commented my running buddy and physician's
assistant Daniel Montoya, sounding like a sarcastic Confucius.
He predicted it would be four to six weeks before I would be
able to make that pushing off motion that is ever so necessary
for running.
Hoping he was wrong, I headed off for
an X-ray. In the examining room I told the doctor my toe did
not hurt much. "You should be in pain," he reported,
after viewing the X-ray which showed an obvious fracture line.
Waving a hand toward my two offspring, I said, "Pain is
relative. I've been through labor twice in the past three years."
More likely I was in denial - if the injury didn't hurt, it couldn't
be that serious.
"Don't worry," the doc said
brightly, "You'll be running again in eight weeks."
"Eight weeks? But I'm going to
Germany in three weeks to run some trails," I exclaimed,
as if the physiological process of bone repair could be adapted
to fit my travel plans. The doctor said something vaguely sympathetic
and handed me a brace. It immobilized my foot with the fringe
benefit of making me walk like the Bride of Frankenstein.
Ten days after the stubbing, I was gingerly
riding my bike up a paved canyon road, smelling the spring wildflowers,
listening to the music of the creek, and watching the sun shimmer
through the cottonwood leaves. It wasn't as good as a trail run,
but at least I wasn't sitting at home making up self-pitying
variations on a familiar child's rhyme.
"This little piggy ruined my summer;
this little piggy had to stay home; other little piggies had
fun; this little piggy had none; and this little piggy made me
go weeks, weeks, weeks, weeks without a run."
Next time, I'll be sure to stub my baby
toe.
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