If You Ignore It, Sometimes It Goes Away

Some people deal with things by not dealing with them.

They go shopping to forget about the fact that they are in debt.

That sort of thing.

I try not to do that sort of thing.

Dealing with things head on is my strategy of choice for most things.

On Saturday night, I was folding my running clothes that just came out of the laundry when it occurred to me that I had not thought about my foot all day.

That may not be odd for most of you. Feet really aren't that fascinating. I'm sure a lot of people did not think about their feet on Friday.

But it is odd for me.

Odd because I have only recently recovered from a stress fracture in my foot. I am hyper-sensitive to anything to do with it now. I think about my foot when I get out of bed in the morning. When I decide what shoes to wear. And certainly I think about it during runs.

I pay attention to how it's feeling. Is there pain? Are there aches? Is it stiff?

On Saturday morning, I ran 20k. And on Saturday night I realized that I had not paid attention to my foot when I woke up. When I got ready for my run. When I ran for 2+ hours. When I stretched and when I showered. I also didn't think about it during the afternoon golf game that Doug and I played.

I only thought about it when I saw my running clothes after dinner.

Why was my foot ignored all day?

Because I was paying extremely close attention to my ears. After the annoying ear-plugging session that happened on a long run a week earlier, I was super-focused on figuring out the cause and finding ways of stopping it from happening again.

I drank tons of water on Thursday and Friday in an attempt to ward off dehydration. I drank before my run. I made myself drink every 10-15 minutes during my run. And I focused all of my attention on my ears. Did they plug up? Both ears at the same time? When did it start? How bad did it get? What was my heart rate and blood sugar when they started plugging? Etc etc etc.

Which meant my foot was completely ignored and able to go for a run without constant supervision...for the first time since May.

Turn out that not dealing with a problem is sometimes a very effective way of dealing with it.

For the record:
- my ears plugged up a bit but didn't get nearly as bad as the week before
- my foot didn't hurt at all during or after the run
- my blood sugar was 4.8 before I started. I ate a banana and a GU gel and did not bolus for it. I also didn't change my basal rate. I was 14.4 at 7.5k, 10.6 at 15k and 6.5 at 20k.
- my heart rate hovered around 165 bpm which is 85% of my max
- I tried a new anti-chafing product and did not chafe at all...except in the one spot I forgot to apply it. Sigh.