#ragbraiprep

[teamcicada]

22 greenway miles yesterday. Use of the Neuse River Trail is picking up. This family stopped for a breather at a spot along the river .

[teamcicada]

Toenail maintenance - an early start

Ingrown toenails... yuck! Last year I trimmed my big toenails in close proximity to RAGBRAI and sure enough there were *problems*. Long hours on the bike aggravated an imperfect trim. My left toe (as though there is only one on each foot) was inflamed and barking loudly by the time we reached Knoxville on Wednesday afternoon. It hurt to walk. A trip to the local first aid tent resulted in an instantaneous diagnosis of "this nail has had problems before". The bottom line was that the problem existed before the ride started and there wasn't anything they could do to help. I hoped that they would give me a piece of wood to bite on and just dig the offending nail out, but I do not fault the volunteers for not doing so. The tissue was extremely tender. I probably could not have held still long enough for someone to attack the swollen toe with a sharp instrument. Nor was the tent equipped for much more than spraying bactine on a scrapped knee or wrapping a sprained ankle in an ace bandage. They offered that I could go to an emergency room somewhere, but I declined. The next day I bumped into the University of Iowa Mobile Emergency Treatment Center. It is stationed at each Meet-up Town.

The EMTs gathered around then offered another instantaneous diagnosis of "this nail has had problems before" and another refusal to do anything remotely resembling digging the offending bit of nail out of the inflamed tissue. Blessedly they put petroleum jelly and a bandage on the toe. It was fabulous. Don't ask me why but their bandage worked like magic. By the end of the day's ride it hurt less to walk. By the end of Ragbrai, it barely hurt at all. I guess the petroleum jelly did something to soften the tissue and the bandage provided a little extra padding. On Thursday evening the original bandage was lost while we played on the water slides Edmundsen Park in Oskaloosa. Playing in the pool added therapeutic benefit, I'm pretty sure. This year I got an early start with a preliminary trim last week and set a calendar event to trim my toenails a month before RAGBRAI starts.