Continuing our story of working on feet at Western States 100 last weekend, I have to share this story. Tonya and I were working side by side as runners came over for our help. She was a quick learner and asked a lot of questions – which was good. Twice, she seemed perplexed, as I was also.
The first time was with a runner who had stubbed her toe, which lifted the big toenail off the nail bed. There was blood under the nail. We noticed more than blood. There was also a large build-up of residue from toenail fungus. I drained the blood blister but could do little to reduce the angle of the nail. It stuck up quite a bit. Putting pressure on the nail to try and get it to lay flatter didn’t work. It hurt her too much. There was too much nail fungus build-up under the nail. That is common with nail fungus. I ended up running a strip of Kinesio-Tex tape from the top of the toe over the tip and underneath. Then a wrapped a length of tape around the toe to help hold the nail down. I talked to the runner about her toenail fungus while I worked. She was aware of the fungus, but hadn’t done anything about it.
The second case was a runner who came in with macerated feet. We cleaned his feet and looked them up and down for anything to patch. Tonya pointed out a bunch of opened skin between his toes. Not a couple of tiny tears, but a lot of open skin around several toes. The skin was soft and wet, and had torn open. It looked pretty painful. It was Athlete’s foot. As I worked on his feet we talked to the runner. He worked in a running store. The advice I gave him was to get out of shoes during the day and let his feet air. And to start taking a proactive approach to medications to rid his feet of Athlete’s foot.
Both cases were interesting in that they knew that had a pre-existing problem condition with their feet. And both had chosen to do nothing, Ignore the problem. Maybe it will go away on its own.
The problem was that these two runners had entered this 100 mile run, and paid a large amount of money for gear, travel, crew and pacers, and spend a lot of time training – without thinking about their pre-existing foot condition. Toenail fungus in the first case and Athlete’s foot in the second.
Each condition was not run ending on a normal day. However this is a 100-mile run. The trail was wet and full of rocks, roots, sand and dirt, and in a race where things “happen.”
A stubbed toe led to a raised big toenail that now pressed even more on a toebox. It must have hurt – especially on the downhills. The Athlete’s foot led to easily opened and torn skin between the runner’s toes. The wet conditions had made it worse. That open and raw skin must have hurt too.
I hope the runners finished. I did not write down their numbers so couldn’t find out.
As I worked on their feet, I talked to each and told them they needed to take care of their conditions. I really wanted to say, “What were you thinking?” Truth be told, I wanted to yell it at them, “What were you thinking?”
Both runners had made choices that jeopardized their finishing. When you invest all that money and energy into a race, why not make sure the two feet that are responsible for getting you there are in the best shape possible.
