Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Ouch! a Blister!

Sunday, Humphrey begged me to take him for a nice, long walk! I can't say no to those sweet puppy dog eyes, so I loaded us up, and we went. I decided on going  to a state park trail about 20 minutes from the house.T and I had been to the trail before, but this was Humphrey's first time.  When we started out, he was super excited and ready to go, but by the end of our 3+ miles he was worn out. He was so tired, he ended up taking a nap on the drive back home. It was a fun day and a great way to get in some non-gym weekend exercise. Unfortunately, I wore the wrong type of shoes for our outing (some sneakers I had gotten for Christmas, but hadn't worn much.) When we got home, I had a horrible blister on the back of my heel. It hurt, but I didn't think that much about it. When I did my shred workout for the night, I noticed a bit of discomfort, but nothing I couldn't work through.
Yesterday, I was ready to kick butt on Week 4 of the couch to 5k. I had even brought a band aid to cover the blister, and thought I would be fine. The blister killed me the entire time. Mentally, I couldn't stop thinking about the pain. I kept telling myself to push through, but as the run intervals continued, the physical pain from the blister was causing a mental block, too. Then I started having trouble keeping my breathing in check. And by the time I was about to start the last 5 minute interval, I was about to DIE to go to the restroom. I got one minute into the final run and had to stop (well I did run to the restroom). I felt horrible stopping before finishing the last 5 minute interval, but I just couldn't keep pushing. When I got to the restroom, my poor blister had turned into a horrible blister and had bled through my sock (and I'm not sure what happened to the band aid).
I wanted to just leave. To forget the rest of my workout for the day. But I didn't want to get behind on the mileage for DDGbD. I decided I would try at least one mile of the three I had planned on the bike, and if I couldn't finish that would be fine. I would leave. But, I was able to finish all three miles...and did half-mile on the beast (summit trainer). When I got home, I did my shred first thing to knock it out of the way. I was proud of what I had accomplished after almost giving up.
I am going to do a redo of Week4Day 1.  I want to say that I fully completed it before checking it off. I am hoping some of the physical struggles I was having with my breathing and heart rate were caused from thinking about the blister and wanting to quit, but this may be a week that I have to work on for awhile before progressing forward.

The blister looks oh so gross today and hurts, too!  I think I will be switching today for Thursdays gym rest day and only do my shred tonight. Wednesday I will try again to push through W4D1.

Hopefully, Humphrey and I can have another adventure soon, but I won't be wearing those awful sneakers again!

Do any of you have any sure fire blister treatments?

8 comments:

  1. I don't know any treatments, really, other than keeping it clean and covered. Band-aid blister bandaids are fantastic... they are super cushy and really seal out the dirt well! Great job keeping going despite your injury!

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  2. Let the blister have some open air!

    Clean it with simple saline water (peroxide, if you use that, actually slows the healing process because it kills EVERYTHING including the new healthy stuff) and then give it time to breath for a while before redressing it with clean gauze or blister band-aids.

    It should dry up/scab and be much less painful in a shoe in a couple of days. "Time heals all wounds" is pretty true, so unfortuantely you'll just have to be patient.

    Keep up the good work though!

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  3. I hate it when I get blisters from my shoes! They really do hurt!

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  5. Yea for the walk and run. Boo to the blister. I usually just cover mine and hope for the best. They are really a pain!

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  6. That sounds nasty! And some days the run is easier or harder then others. Sorry, no blister advise.

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  7. That blister sounds awful painful. Humphrey is sooo cute! I like his smile!

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  8. Ouch. I hate blisters. I agree with the open to the air treatment. Makes it hard to run, though. Have you tried moleskin? You can buy it at the drug store. It's a thick cloth that's specially made to keep your skin from whatever is bothering it, you cut it to whatever size you need and it adheres much better than a bandaid. My son used to rely on it to cushion blisters when he was a college runner.

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