Sac Fit Saturday!

"It isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out,it's the grain of sand in your shoe."

So my run was supposed to be 14.5 and we had a route that was absolutely gorgeous - around Lake Natoma. What happened was I started out well and was doing amazing - staying with my group, not dropping back or going ahead, we were using the aid stations set up for us around the loop and things were great! Then came the pain around mile 6... It started out as an annoying little twinge in the bottom of my foot every time I stepped down, it got worse and worse. I figure it started getting really bad around mile 9 and I decided I just wasn't hitting the ground with my heel and for some reason hitting it more flat footed. At mile 11 I stopped, watched my group run ahead without me and I sat down on a rock wall to see if I could massage the pain out of my foot. Imagine my surprise when I find a small piece of sand or gravel stuck in my shoe in the very spot I first felt the pain. I held on to it for a while, but it made me angry so I threw it in the bushes as hard as I could to make a point. If I only would have stopped to investigate it earlier I would have been able to finish. I walked/ran/limped back to the ranger station and called my hubby. While waiting for him to show, one of the slower pace groups passed by and I called hubby back and told him I was going to try and run in with them. I made it all the way to the last aid station that our group had set up and by that time the pain was really bad and I was getting too hot. I rode in with one of the aid station workers. My total mileage was still 14.28 - I only lost a little of what I was supposed to do since I had went back to the ranger station. Once I took off my shoe after I got home the side of my foot was a little puffy and a reddish/purple color. It got better overnight, but walking on it today has made it puffy again and painful. I have been icing it and elevating it in hopes that the irritation will go down enough for me to run again on it soon. Three weeks before my first half marathon and I have a puffy foot!! I have no doubt in my mind I can do the mileage now, but I need to listen to the cues my body sends me. If I had only stopped when I felt that first "something" in that spot and taken off my shoe I would have found the culprit. Overall I'm happy with the way the first part of the run went - like I said I stayed with my group and stayed on pace until I had to stop and take the boulder out of my shoe. If I had only known....