Losing my toenails and stewarding stories

Three of my toenails fell off last week. I'm sure most readers will be pleased to know that I managed to keep two of them (from the big toe on either foot), and that one is currently sitting in the top drawer of a cupboard in my office at work. At times like this I was I was more of a technical guru, and I would put a photo of it on this site for all to enjoy. Sadly, my limited IT skills mean that will not be possible, at least for the time being.

I thought it was quite odd that it took about 2 and a half weeks from the race for them to fall off. Is this a normal pattern? If any chiropodists are reading, please feel free to comment.

The timing went something like this:

Race day - toe nails take a battering;
First week after race - feet generally quite sensitive; toe nails look past their best;
Second week after race - feet starting to improve but toenails look beyond redemption;
Two and a half weeks after race - toenails fall off and are placed in drawer.

I doubt I will lose 3 toenails at next years WHW race - mainly because I don't have 3 left to lose. I have only 2 left.

Anyway, I'm pleased to say that my loss of tailnails has not prevented me from getting back into some running. At the weekend I did a couple of 10 mile runs, both of which were very hilly and tough but most enjoyable nonetheless. Our club hosted the Famous Grouse 10k at Crieff on Sunday. I wasn't able to run in it because I was helping - in fact would you believe I was given 2 jobs to do? My first job was to direct the cars into the car park before the race, then after that I had to steward at a junction around the 1k and 9k mark. I hope you will forgive my lack of modesty in saying I thought I did both jobs very well. No-one hit the wall on their way into the car park (which, given the tightness of the space, was a remarkable achievement), and no-one went off course at my junction. However, I am sad to report that one runner did go off course just after my junction. I'm sure I told him to "Go down the hill and keep to the right", but he thought I said "Go down the hill and take a right". That meant instead of following the route to the finish he turned right onto a path along the banks of the River Earn. Somewhat amusingly (but not for him I'm sure) he kept going along this path for about a kilometre, and then met the race coming in the opposite direction. It must have added at least 2 kilometres to his run, and moved him from a very good finishing position to a position somewhere in the middle of the field. Thankfully he was ok about it, and will hopefully come back next year and run the proper route.