Running with broken toe

You might take me to task with the title, especially as it is my first foray into Blogging. I hardly 'run', actually even the term 'jogging' may be an exaggeration. Said toe may not be broken, blackened, yes, bleeding yes, broken - only a maybe. All in a rushed, definitely running, attempt to save washing from a drenching on Saturday afternoon. Why did I run without shoes, why did I kick the corner of that concrete flower pot so hard, why did I have to do that within 24 hours of my second attempt of 'running' the Great West Jog.

Running with broken toe gave me an excuse to do badly. Actually after strapping it to the toe next to it and dosing myself on painkillers I can honestly say it wasn't nearly as bad as I anticipated. I was aiming to do the 13.1 miles in 2 hours 10 minutes and at 2:16 I was quite content; still 20+ minutes quicker than two years ago.

My father commented that 'Running with broken toe' had something of the 'Native American' about it, that is the indigenous peoples of North America. This rang a bell with me and reminded me of the reason I started running in the first place. Okay: to lose weight, get fit and share a recreational activity with my wife are the three other reasons. The other, other reason has a relation with that idea of 'indigenous'. Now I understand 'indigenous' to mean 'occurring naturally', 'innate' or 'inherent' and not just to races or peoples but also to qualities. Long distance running is something I maintain is utterly unnatural for me, I ran 100 metres for my school and played rugby on the wing and right back for the football team. I had an innate ability to run quickly over very short distances but NEVER over long.

We are each born with inherent, dare I say 'indigenous, strengths and weaknesses and, I guess given the choice,we often do the things that we are good at, the things that we enjoy. My question and my other, other reason to start running was to ask what happens when we purposefully engage with those things we find difficult or dislike, the things we have always said that we just can't do?

I didn't need an alleged broken toe to run badly when I run (jog) badly anyway. Jogging badly was actually part of the plan.