I’m in Detroit right now for our bi-annual Sales Meeting.  I woke up this morning at home and completed an 8 mile run before driving over.  It was cold this morning, 45 degrees so I wore a long sleeve shirt the whole way.  I didn’t feel like running.  My left foot actually felt fine but my right foot was bothering me.  I should briefly mention that I had a great 10 mile run with Tim on Saturday.  We averaged 7:30 pace and I felt confident that I can complete the Bridge 10 miler next weekend!

 Back to this morning.  I did something with my right foot at a wedding we were at over the weekend.  I’m not sure if I was stepping on it different because my left foot had been hurting or if I twisted it on the uneven ground or what.  The whole 8 miles this morning it hurt every time I landed on it.  Several times I asked myself if I should cut the run short.  I weighed the pros and cons in my head so many times.  It went something like this.  “Am I doing further damage by continuing to run on it?  It doesn’t seem to be getting worse, so probably not.  Is running with this intensity of pain good for me, mentally and physically?  Sometimes when you’re in pain you unconsciously change the way you run and it can lead to other problems.  I don’t seem to be running any different.  What if I did 6 miles instead of 8?  Well, I don’t want to have to run 8 miles any other day this week so just get it over with…”  And the thoughts went on, but ultimately I made the decision at every point that I could have cut to keep going.  Why?  Well, for one, I really didn’t think it was making anything worse and for another, it didn’t seem to be changing the way I was running.  Another reason, I admit was because I knew I would be out of town and have lots of “not so healthy” food temptations and I knew I’d feel less guilty if I ran 8 miles.  Either way, I got the run in, felt great afterwards and rubbed my foot during the long drive and it actually felt better.  We’ll see how it feels tomorrow.