Purely out of anticipation and a night of sufficient rest, I woke up twenty minutes before my 5:00 am alarm two Sundays ago, February 18, 2024. A barn owl was hooting across the street, perched high up in a neighbor’s tree, which extended into a sky not yet exposed to sunlight. The breathing nasal strip I had placed on the bridge of my nose the night before was gone, lost to the green sheets and white pillows of my bed. I arched my feet to crack my toes — and was struck by an unusual pain on my left foot. I reminded myself that each long run, easy or difficult, practically promises an unforeseen challenge to overcome (e.g., side stitch, apparatus discomfort, etc.). My problem was that this challenge emerged long before hitting a single stride.
The pain was coming from my left metatarsophalangeal (MTP) joint, near but a hair lateral and inferior to the area where bunions usually form. Now, the pain wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it sure was unwelcome and a bit confusing. I had taken two days off from training. The pain was around the same area where I had given myself one of the deepest running blisters I’ve ever had. This blister had formed and popped about 10 days prior, the evening that I received my new race day shoes. Rather than break the new pair in, like a rational person, I immediately ran in them — way too excited to try them out…
