Poking Myself With A Sharp Stick

I had just finished my 10 miler this morning in the heat and humidity. It was a tough run but it felt good. I was walking toward the house when all of a sudden...PAIN! I had just stepped on something and it pierced right through my shoe and into my foot. I hobbled a couple of steps on one foot as I tried to get my tired legs to stop wobbling so that I could try to pull out whatever was sticking into my foot.

It turned out to be an extremely sharp, 3 inch long thorn that was still connected to a tree branch that had fallen onto the street. The pain subsided as soon as I pulled the thorn out and I went in the house to inspect the damage. I took my shoe and sock off but I didn't see any damage to my foot and couldn't even see where the thorn had pierced it. Upon inspection of my sock, there was a tiny speck of blood where the thorn had gone through.

I shook it off. Showered and took the family to the pool. My legs were sore and I was looking forward to a good soak in the cold pool. Everything was fine for the first 40 minutes or so but then all of a sudden my foot started to hurt. It got progressively worse to the point where I was in some serious pain. It was bad enough that I decided to sit and rest while the family swam for the last hour.

We came home and I took advil and iced the foot. It was noticably swollen. I was debating whether or not to go to the hospital. I decided to take a nap and see how I felt when I woke up. When I woke, it was still sore but not nearly as bad as it had been at the pool. I continued to ice and hoped for the best.

As of right now, my whole foot is swollen and my little toe and the area around it is quite sore. I'm hoping that it feels better in the morning but I'm not all that optimistic at the moment. Fortunately, I'm not scheduled to run tomorrow and hopefully by Tuesday I'll be back to normal. It's always something...but what are the odds that a thorn would pierce my shoe and go into my foot? Argh!