The ugliest blister I have ever had

I did my 17 mile run yesterday in a new pair of shoes, which I thought I had properly broke in. I think I was pretty damn wrong!

About 7 miles in to the run I noticed I was starting to get a blister on the ball of my left foot (big spot behind your big toe). I thought, well, today is my long run, no need to let a blister stop me, I will deal with it when I am done. Around mile 13 I was really starting to notice the pain from it, and I was noticing that now the blister was moving around to the inside of my foot, up around the area on the side of my foot. This is not the area you step on, this is on the soft skin on the side of your foot. I still had 4 miles to go, and every step, I could feel the pain.

The problem with this is your body naturally wants to compensate and not step on the ball of your foot. When you allow your body to compensate you tend to injure other parts of your body. This can be the small bones on the outside of your foot because you are landing and possibly pushing off of your pinky toe area instead of your big toe area. The other common injury would be to rotate your foot to block stepping on the sore spot and hurting your ankle, knee or hip. I had to focus on keeping my foot landing right, and just dealing with the pain.

I made it to 17.3 miles, but I was definitely hurting at the end.

When I got home and took off my shoes I immediately looked at my left foot to see what the damage was. It was not pretty. I had a blister on the ball of my foot that is about an inch long, and a half inch wide. Then, on the side of my foot I have another blister which is slightly larger than a quarter.

The interesting thing about this blister is it is red, not quite like a blood blister, but not a skin color either. The other interesting thing about this blister, was when I pressed on the blister on the bottom of my foot, the blister on the side of my foot will fill up with fluid. When I pushed on the side one, the blister on the bottom of my foot would fill up with fluid. When I walk, I can feel the fluid moving from under my foot to the on each step, and it hurts!

I decided that I needed to pop it before it popped itself. The reason for this is if it happened to pop while I was running, or even at the office, I would have no control over how much of the blister was open, or even if I would catch it right away. This would have led to a possible infection, which is the last thing I need.

Tonight I popped the blister, and Kristin really wanted to see the color of the puss, so I did it in the bath tub so we could see. It was pretty disgusting. If you can imagine the color of the blood at the bottom of a package of hamburger meat, that is the color of the puss. Or, puss and blood mixed together.

After thoroughly draining the blister(s) I used super glue to seal the opening back up. I then covered it with bag balm and a large bandage. I will be taking it off every night to let it air out, and dressing it back every morning. Letting it air out at night, and then keeping it protected from infection during the day will help it heal as fast as possible. Not to mention, popping it allows me to run on it now. :)

I thought about taking pictures, but it was too disgusting to post, so I decided if I had no pictures, I wouldn't be tempted to post it for you to see.