Or in my case, running without shoes where glass was previously broken.
I noticed a sore area on my left big toe yesterday. Because I’d been reading up about the two tiny floating bones under your big toe’s metatarsal heads, called sesamoids, I naturally assumed I’d inflamed one of these somehow. So I did nothing about it for day thinking it would sort itself out. It was only running again the following day that I realised it must be a splinter. And on closer examination it must be a glass splinter, as I couldn’t see the foreign object at all.
This is the second glass splinter I’ve had during my current running-everyday-thing and both where incredibly tiny. I managed to get a photo of this one, and as you can see it’s less that 2mm across at its widest.
I’ve probably had around four splinters in total since I started kicking off my shoes four years ago. I guess having two in short succession is because my rate of running has gone up. Plus I guess it doesn’t help that I have to run past several bars where there is bound to be tiny fragments left over from a smashed glass or two. Too small to see, and that’s the point. This kind of tiny splinter is just not visible and both times I didn’t notice it going it; only realising much later.
So while I’m constantly on the lookout for broken glass in my path, in order to avoid it, these tiny splinters are completely unavoidable. Fortunately both were removed with little fuss with a needle. Which I was amazed about, as they literally are invisible while in the wound. Still there’s always the baking soda method if that doesn’t work in the future.