The Joy of Callouses and Blisters

A warning to my more sensitive readers: this post is about feet. Well, it's about feet, and legs, and hips, and gripes that are now eighteen months old. The thing is that I love to run. I love it because it's hard, efficient, and intense, so I get all the added benefits of an exercise that is all consuming for a girl on the go.

But last year I hit a snag. I won't go into the long story of pain and diagnosis, so to make it short, I have a chronic IT band issue caused by supination, a bow-legged, outside-edge-of-foot way of walking and running that I just can't help. That has kept me in pain for eighteen months, and it's kept me out of my running shoes for almost a year. But finally, bit by careful bit, I've been working my way up to this:

Yes, that is a callous and a blister (hey, no one ever said runners have pretty feet). And to me that means victory. I don't even mind that pain. I'm working carefully on my hip with daily stretches and a killer hard foam roll to smooth out all the tight spots. In the last two weeks, I've successfully been on five runs. Sure, the runs are short and nothing like what I used to do, but when I compare it to where I've been, it's a dream.