I decided to pass on the run Wednesday morning - the pressure of the blankets against my toe hurt all night - I took that as an indication that it wasn't ready to run on. I patiently waited till yesterday morning instead. I went out with Rick and Barb for 4.5 miles, wearing my new smartwool socks - medium cushion. They felt great! My Garmin worked fine (this is important later in the story). I went back out last night, at the track, in about 70 degree weather. I ran about 3.5 miles with Jenny. This time my toe hurt - I was wearing the other pair of smartwool socks - ultralight cushioning. After I pulled my sock off and looked, I found a big crack across the new skin. No wonder it hurt! I'm trying eight tomorrow in the medium cushion again. In the picture from the previous post, only part of the blister is exposed - it went up the inside of my toe and over the top of the toe too. All of that skin is now gone, exposing shiny new skin. I didn't intentionally remove the skin - when a blister is that big, and filled with enough fluid so it is extended a half inch, the skin is very stretched out and doesn't re-adhere very well. It was moving around and coming loose with the band-aid, so I gave up and took it off after a couple of days. I'm sure it'll be fine soon.

I have tried the Blistershield powder. I screwed it up though. I put Aquaphor over the exposed toe beds, then stuck my foot into the powder filled sock. I ended up with powder-caked toes. I will try it again without the Aquaphor. Don't ask me why I did that, because I have no real idea - other than that I always put Aquaphor on my toes. Which is silly, since it obviously is not preventing blisters anyway!

On another note, I'm feeling a little frustrated this morning with my Garmin. I turned it on in the car last night (which I have done before without a problem). Last night it was a mistake. Apparently, it got very confused and even though I turned if off and back on, could not find the signal. Eric and Steve both had a signal on theirs, so it was just mine. Then it asked me if I was 100s of miles from my last run - no. I was three miles from my last run. It asked me to confirm the date - and I inadvertently indicated that the date was wrong. Whoops. I finally gave up and turned it off. Of course, when I was done running and turned it back on it worked. Even so, this is not the frustrating part, this is just the back story.

I plugged it into the computer when I got home - Riley was using the computer and was signed on as the user. I went off to bed, and when Riley went to bed he shut the computer off, as usual. No biggie. I'm sure the Garmin Training Center was up and the "okay" message about receiving runs was displaying. This morning I turned the computer on, and as usual, the GTC popped up. This time I got an error message - it said my user profile did not match, and what did I want to do? Here is my second mistake - I said, use the one in the watch. It promptly reloaded the entire history. That seemed okay, till I looked back - it wrote over the top of all the old runs, causing me to lose all my notes - about routes, who I ran with, weather and heart rates. That was bad enough, but it also lost all graphs and maps for all but the last couple of weeks. I am really bummed. I've emailed Garmin asking if there is any recovery. I have no idea why the profile changed (I looked at the watch - it had reverted to the standard). Take this as a warning - if you get that error message, check out the watch settings before you choose! So yep, I'm frustrated. It's not the end of the world, but I really liked having my graphs and maps from some of the big runs - Orcas, Capital Peak and Pigtails. Bummer.

On a happier note, the preschool is on spring break, so my only work today is to go to a meeting this afternoon. That is a nice start to the Easter weekend. Eric and I will be visiting his Dad and my parents this weekend - I think without either of the boys with us. I guess we've moved into that stage of life where we will be childless on some of the holidays. Remember when your kids were little and you would arrive at the Grandparents - and it was like you didn't even exist - the eyes zoomed right past you and focused on the little ones? You felt the breeze as Grandma rushed past you to dispense hugs and kisses to your children, and you would hesitantly remind your parents that you were there too...because you got the feeling that you only existed to transport their grandchildren into their presence? (Of course, many of you are a bit younger than me and may still be experiencing this. And then, many of you are older and may be guilty of actually doing it yourself!) It'll be interesting to see what happens when we walk in the door, no children in tow...will they look past us? Will they be confused? Or will they be happy that we came anyway? We'll find out...

MM#402, signing off from the sunny Pacific Northwest, where the boys have grown to young men and the parents now travel alone.