The first celebration of the month, mostly normal toes! The second highlight, I got to return to running post-broken-toe, has been exciting! Third, Janel and I visited Ireland! Okay, that’s enough exclamation marks for now. More to come.

February was on the low end of the data side of running. A broken toe will do that. I had quite a gap of no running for most the month. That was my attempt at resting my toe. I definitely didn’t rest as long as I should but oh well, I got the rest of my life to worry about future chronic pain right? The ignorance of youth…

So how did February look? Let’s see the rest, the comeback, and the Irish!

Week 1: 0 Miles – 0 feet of elevation

Bye bye run streak! Beginning of rest time for the broken toe. Actually the rest time began January 31st but this was continued rest. I picked up my cycling workouts and stopped lifting leg exercises. Can’t say I was too sad to say bye to a gym workout. I’d at least continue lifting with an upper-body focus for the month.

That left the battle against the scale to officially begin. Would the weight gain happen? Probably. You may stop this guy from running but my love for fried food will never be satisfied. Good luck this month to my waistline!

Week 2: 1.2 Miles – 70 feet

Short rest! Was I supposed to run? Maybe not. I had a reason to run though. Janel and I visited Ireland and as a runner, you got to run in Ireland! We got to see our old stomping grounds from our favorite pubs to our old apartment (flat for the Irish). I didn’t care how my toe was going to feel on the cobblestones, I was going to run within the city for auld times sake. Good idea? Well, during the run my toe didn’t hurt too bad. After the run, it was back to my new normal color of my toe featuring black, green, and purplish bruising. I gotta say, I do love colors. On a fun note, I’ll share some photos from our trip below!

The run for the week? Just around where we stayed with part of it on the stairs at the end to get in a little elevation. Weather? Rainy of course. No photos from the run because I didn’t want to risk the phone getting too wet.

Week 3: 5.4 Miles – 40 feet

We got back from Ireland after a super fun week and a few pounds heavier on my end. I had promised myself that I would rest and I did that for at least a few more days. Then had some big work stress happen. How to deal with that? Time to run it out. It wasn’t ideal for the toe but I wasn’t sleeping too hot with all the stress going on.

Luckily, the toe was beginning to be on the mend and the run wasn’t as bad as I initially thought. At this point, it looked like I could return to running. My toe would still bruise up a little more after the run but the swelling was mostly red in color which felt more normal to my skin. No offense to those green-purple people out there.

Week 4: 6.2 Miles – 730 feet

A 10K mileage week to end the month! Disclaimer, it was not a 10K all in one go. I did have a 2.2 mile run and a four mile run this week. The four miler was a good one because I got in some elevation gain and that was about 700 feet in one go. It made up most the elevation gain for the month and most the mileage too!

Overall: 12.8 Miles and 830 feet of elevation gain

Juuust below the monthly goal of 130 miles and 9.000 feet of elevation gain. Hopefully March can at least get to the halfway point of those averages. On the fun side, I did 405 floors on the stairclimber across a few different workouts which translates to walking around 4,050 feet of elevation. A positive note there and my legs felt that pain. It was my attempt to continue working towards my Mt. Everest goal. I also cycled a bit on an indoor trainer but nothing particular stood out to me about that experience.

Compared to last year’s running data though, I am officially behind. That was my guess with the toe being hurt but with a few more miles to end the week, I have a chance to bounce back in March. Goal is to take it nice and easy.

Anyways, hope you all have had a wonderful February and enjoy the miles!

**Pictures from left to right. Janel taking her old morning work route, Janel and I enjoying a tour at Teelings Whiskey Distillery, and me still have a crush on my wife at Trinity where we went to school. Cheers!