If the stone hurts...

I thought that I had escaped Saturday's 4-hour run unscathed and, in most ways, I did.  Immediately after the run, my legs felt stiff and achey but that was to be expected, and within 24 hours they felt fine again.  What I didn't expect to find, however, as I prepared for bed on Saturday night, was a bruised and swollen section across the middle of the sole of my right foot.  It didn't hurt during the run, it didn't hurt during the rest of the evening, but it was very tender when I put some recovery arnica cream on my feet before bed.  Weird.  And it was still there Sunday morning, along with a couple of little bumpy nodule-type things that hurt when I pressed them.  So I iced and arnica-ed and compression socked myself for the rest of the day to no avail.  It still felt like I had a huge bruise across the bottom of my foot and all that I could think was that this had been caused by running across numerous sections of sharp stones, which I felt even through the sturdy soles of my trail shoes.

On Saturday afternoon, I had magnanimously given up today's appointment with Adam so that Bassman could be seen instead (having sustained his first running-related injury a few days previously).  On Sunday afternoon, I clawed back part of that appointment for my own use.  Nothing like the fear of plantar fasciitis to squash my altruistic tendencies. 

Adam was his usual sympathetic and supportive self, although I could tell that an eye-roll when I mentioned PF wasn't far off.  He had a feel of my foot and yes, it hurt.  IT HURT A LOT, especially when he pressed on the spot where the nodule-type thing is.  He thought that there was a bit of swelling but that the main source of pain was the nodule-type thing, which he thought felt like a cyst.  And then, in between him doing his job of causing me so much pain that I didn't even have enough breath to curse, we tried to puzzle out what else this could be besides a cyst.

Bastard stones.

Adam thought that my hypothesis of sharp-stone-induced-bruising was a possibility.  Funny, though, how pain clears your brain.  After a particularly excruciating manipulation, I had an epiphany:  I suddenly remembered that for at least the last 3 miles of the run, I had a couple of small but painful stones rattling around in my shoe and that they kept getting stuck under my arch until I managed to dislodge them permanently down towards my toes.  Adam just looked at me as I disclosed this and I said it before he could:  I'm such an idiot.

So, yes, my nodule-type thing could well be a cyst or even Plantar Fibromatosis.  But it's far more likely at this point that it is bruising and trauma caused by 1) running across sharp rocks without due care and attention and 2) being too lazy to stop and de-stone my shoe.  Sigh.  I've now learned why the ultra rule of 'Take care of the little things before they become big things' is a rule.  I won't make that mistake again.

I am trying not to be the Other People.