Day 8

Fairview to Penny Road (Tooele)

I said that the word for yesterday was pain, the word for today is excruciation.

At around mile fifteen the outside of my right foot started to hurt. Come mile eighteen I was reduced to a hobble again. I made it to mile 20 and inspected my foot. I couldn't locate the point of pain just by touching so I thought it might have just been a strange cramp. Unfortunately the next ten miles I realized this was not just a cramp.

My foot hurt so bad that it throbbed just walking on it. Every step included stabbing pain that made me want so badly for the day to be over.

My wife came with me for the last eight miles. We walked for most of the time and she did an excellent job at keeping my mind off the pain by talking to me. The last three miles I managed to run but it hurt extremely bad.

After arriving back at the hotel I made myself an ice bath. I took the liner out of a garbage can we had in our room and filled it with ice from the ice dispenser. I then poured a huge mound of ice into the tub and filled it with water. I sat in the freezing water for as long as I could stand and then changed it to hot water.

Let's pray my foot heals before tomorrow.

Day 7

Vivian Park to Fairview

The word for the day is pain.

I guess the Suday rest I had was a little too gentle on me. I should have gone out and walked a bit. I was sore while running. I ended up having to limp the last six miles because my left quad was in such pain. Also, for the first time ever, I had shin splints.

This was such a painful day that it was really hard to focus on anything positive.

At one point I looked up in the sky and noticed two birds trying to fly into the wind. I saw how slow they were and thought to myself, "Why don't they just fly the other direction?" That's when it hit me that birds that refuse to fly into the wind are very limited when choosing where they want to go. I suppose this applies to all difficult things in life. The more willing we are to do things that others find difficult, the more options we have when choosing where we want to end up.

Pray for me that tomorrow is easier.