Pin the Tail on . . . Me?

Being a runner requires not only endurance for the run, but endurance for the pain. Shin splints have always been part of the cost of running for me and I’m assuming my hip pain will be going forward as well. It’s the little things that you forget about though when you’re dying to run but attempting to heal the major parts of your body.

I bring this up because the past two mornings, I have had to attempt to put a Neosporin laced Band-Aid on my back. Think about it, how successful are you at scratching your back, putting lotion on your back or give yourself a back massage? It’s really difficult to do anything to your own back. Now envision me attempting to bandage my own back. I got the darn band-aid on there, but it took some serious twisting and stretching and at the end was done simply by feel – very similar to playing pin the tail on the donkey. I know where the band aid needed to go; now I just had to get it on the right spot.

I bring all this up because I’ve suffered any number of injuries over my years as an athlete. In high school, I had a hip that was bright purple for about four solid months during volleyball season. I’ve tried just about every variation of taping for shin splints there is. I’ve pulled muscles, had more bruises than I can count, and even acquired a black eye once. Running brings on its own set of minor injuries however.

Last year I lost a toe nail. You know what’s not hot in flip flops? A girl with a missing toe nail. Although by the end of last season my feet were so torn up from running, I probably shouldn’t have been showing my bare feet in public to start with. Feet peel, are callused and blistered. Running has caused me to chafe on parts of my body that are very uncomfortable to chafe, as well as every other body part. As a runner, you send up a silent thank you to the inventors of Body Glide each time you have to use it. And this weekend I managed to chafe the small of my back. I wasn’t even running in a new pair of shorts!

Tonight is a running night for me and as I was attempting to pin the band-aid on my owie this morning, I started to question my sanity. Here I am stretching and twisting and blindly trying to bandage my own back and for what? So I can run a few miles? Is all this pain really worth it? About the time I was questioning my sanity, I happened to glance over to the place where my Hood to Coast bib from last year was hanging. Hell yeah. It’s worth every lost toe nail, every single blister and every single band-aid wasted trying to pin it onto part of your body you can’t reach.