Today is the last day of early registration for the Philadelphia Marathon. I am not signing up.
Why not? Because I am terrified of this happening again:
(This picture is from wikipedia - these aren't actually my toes.)
Last year I was training for the Philadelphia Half-Marathon, to be held the weekend before Thanksgiving. About a month before, my toes started getting red and really swollen and itchy. It took a while, but I finally self-diagnosed the issue: chilblains. (Thank you to this website: http://www.epodiatry.com/chilblains.htm) Turns out those runs in the cold and rain with shoes that were too small weren't actually good for me. Oh yeah, and that hot hot shower afterwards? And the fact that I'm a young female? Also not good :-P
So now I'm trying to tell myself to do a half in September instead, so there's no risk of the cold completely messing up my toes. It looks promising: http://philadelphia.competitor.com/ After all, I need something to motivate me to do more than a 3 mile jog a couple days a week!