marathon in jeopardy

so i’ve been kind of freaking out lately because i seem to have devoloped this foot injury that may prevent me from running the marathon. i have not run in three days, but if all goes well i should be back in action soon. so here’s the basic story:

since high school i’ve had this lingering pain in the bottom of my foot that i always just ran with. it was a discomfort, but nothing to keep me from training. i hate going to the doctor, i find most doctor visits utterly useless, and I have long ago developed a disdain not only for the typical complaints such as long waits and expensive prescriptions, but the astonishing quality that seems almost a prerequisite for becoming a doctor of  annoying the crap out of me on every level imaginable.

anyways, the pain in my foot had been getting worse as i began to increase my mileage. i finally got to the point of trying to figure out what was wrong. after some research i figured that i probably had a “morton’s neuroma,”
defined in Wikipedia as “a  benign of the interdigital plantar nerve.” it’s basically an enlarged nerve that gets pinched between two metatarsals while running. so i got some shoes with a wider toe-box and insoles, a couple of basic remedies that i read up on. i figured the problem would work itself out. i was sadly mistaken, last week, the morning after a hard run, i woke up and could barely put any weight on my foot. it was bad, but after a little bit of walking around my foot felt better. i decided to do an easy 5 that day. next morning it only got worse. i biked for a couple of days and again thought i’d be good to go. stupidly, i did that 16 miler on sunday. the pain was bad to start, but it kind of numbed up after a while and i finished the run.

i took the next two days off, hoping for… i don’t really know what. as it didn’t get any better i started really worrying that it could be a stress fracture. finally today, the day of my departure for berlin, i called a podiatrist and made a desperate plea to see me today. i went in and the doc took an x-ray, squeezed my foot for some time and told me that i probably had a bad neuroma. he gave me a shot to kill the nerve and told me that if it’s nothing more than a neuroma i should be fine to run tomorrow, but if pain persists it is probably a hair-line fracture and i need to take serious time off.

i’m hoping for the best.

happy birthday blog

hey.

so it’s three days before i leave for berlin, after months of trying to motivate myself to start this blog, i’ve finally done it. i blame the delay on a couple of things outlined below.

the original stimulus for my interest in blogging was my upcoming journey across the atlantic, but when I made the (foolish?) decision to run my first marathon while i’m in germany, i figured that i should also use the blog to document this grandiose undertaking. additionally, in a display of my uncanny tendency to bite off more than i can chew, i entertained the idea of keeping a running blog of my thoughts on my academic interests. thus, the first challenge was to really define what i want to accomplish with this blog, what’s its purpose?

the second should not have been a challenge but it was. i needed a name. what’s a blog without a cool name? it’s lame is what it is. i’m not claiming that what i’ve finally settled on is entirely inspiring, but i certainly think it’s better than “Fedor’s blog” (read: “I’m a lame-ass”). With my title, you at least have to read between the lines.

anyways, under pressure to get something online before my departure and frustrated with the unnecessary delay, i solved my problems in one afternoon. i always use my time while running to think about anything and everything (what else am i supposed to do). so today during my 16 mile run i found answers to both of my challenges. firstly, i shall write about whatever i feel like. obviously for the next five months the blog will likely be dominated by accounts of my time in germany. germany is cool, my real life is really quite boring. running is part of what i will be doing in germany, so i will blog about that too. finally, if i come across an interesting article and have some ideas about it, i just might have to dazzle you with my wisdom (don’t worry this doesn’t happen often). mainly, this blog is for myself, but it’s also a good way to let friends and family know what i’m up to.

my first choice for the title of my blog was “ich bin kein berliner.” i thought it was clever and relevant. that is until i “googled” the name and realized that (1) it was already in use and (2) i wasn’t so clever, because it was the title of a book by wladimir kaminer, a russian-german author who i happened to read last semester in german class, and i quickly remembered noting the title of his book. instead, i went with the other inspiration i had during my long run. i guess you could say i stole this one from kurt vonnegut, but the fact that it makes little sense to anyone who doesn’t speak the exact combination of languages that i claim to have some familiarity with makes it my own (and probably makes me look like an idiot).

so, while watching the broadcast of the 80th annual academy awards (where people i don’t know received awards for movies i had not seen for 4 hours) i sat on my living room couch, laptop in … well lap, and diligently went through the two-step process of creating my very own blog. i went on to spend the rest of the time fruitlessly trying to learn how to “pimp out my wordpress blog,” then finally settled down to write this inaugural post.

all i can say is: if i put even half as much effort into updating this blog as i put into thinking about making it for the last two months, i think it will be a success.

happy birthday blog