De feet, on de fence

Running isn't for the faint of constitution. And no one needs the benefit of an iron gut more than the families of runners.

We may be able to endure the black toenails and the red chafe marks, but the people who love us, don't always see these marks as badges of honor.. 

Running a streak – a seemingly never-ending amount of consecutive days of running – takes a different kind of stamina of them, one that includes mastery over gag reflexes.

Case in point: A recent long run had left me with a blister the size of my foot … on my foot.

It was a spectacular spectacle that no one in their right mind would want to see even by accident, let alone on purpose. 

"OH my GOD, MOM! Put your feet away, they are disgusting," said a most alarmed Junior, when her elbow grazed my instep as we jostled on the couch fighting for the most comfortable spots for Movie Night.

But it's the kind of thing a person can't really hide under cover of a sock … or even under a throw blanket, since the weight of the thinnest of thin blankets could send me howling in misery.

Tomorrow, I hope it will be better, but tonight it's too painful for even the scrape of a slight breeze, let alone the giant sigh of revulsion that escapes from the girl. 

The sound of her displeasure follows me through the steps I take to treat my throbbing foot: first, when I apply a slathering of antiseptic cream and then as I wrestle a bandage from its packaging. She makes a retching sound when I switch on the sanding pumice and press it to the flesh.

"You do know how utterly disgusting that is, right?"

Little does she know, I'd be more chagrinned if she hadn't followed me into the bathroom, where I'd hoped to have enough peace and quiet to shave my calluses or pluck my newly emerging chin hairs.

I do believe you have a bathroom of your very own down at the end of the hall. If I recall correctly, I helped you paint it that lovely and sophisticated color gray. I also bought you towels that I seem to wash quite regularly.

She doesn't generally cotton my pointed jabs at her expense. And she responds by questioning my very sanity, evidenced by the state of my old dogs.

"How did you run your mile today?" she taunts, kicking her calves against the couch's arm as if to punctuate each one of her accusatory words. "I know you couldn't fit your sneakers over that foot, let alone stretch a sock over that mangled bit of flesh that's dangling at the end of your ankle."

"Now whose being gross," yelled the disembodied voice of her brother, my unlikely champion, as he yelled through the "pew-pew" sound effects of his latest transfixing video game. 

"Don't get me wrong. Her feet ARE gross," he adds, loud enough to establish that he has not taken my side in whatever battle has been waged. 

"The streak is still intact! I ran barefoot. In the grass," I expound, full of pride at the level of perseverance it had to take a person with obvious wounds to hobble around a track for 1609.34 meters.

One Hundred Nine days and still counting.