Notes
After being in denial for a day, I went to urgent care to confirm that I have a broken toe (right foot, 4th toe, proximal bone). No boot or cast, just stay off it. 3-4 weeks to cure, though I can run before that if there's no pain. So not a terrible time frame but we shall see.
The bummer is that my 2023 year is effectively over. I got >1000 miles already which is nice. I'll miss my tradition of a christmas 10 miler. But the 1 goal I had yet was to run a 5min mile before the end of the year. Thus breaking my 19 year streak. Especially lame since I was clearly in shape in January if I had raced a mile (and not gone into AFIB). And I'm fairly confident that I could have done it any of the last couple months. But I saved it for December thinking I'd be in good enough shape to not have to go all out, which I think I was. Then I got sick last week and this injury ends any chances.
To be fair, my streak would never have been ratified (FYI, the record is 43 years, which I was way off of, but it was fun to think about and I would say consistency is perhaps my greatest quality as a runner). Here's how it went down:
2004-2006: Broke 5 sophomore through senior years of high school, but only in the 1600. And I didn't break it by enough to claim the extra 9 meters as meaningless, seasonal bests were 4:59, 4:59, 4:57. My coach had team goals of # of guys under 5, so once I hit the time, I went back to 3200's. If we had ran miles, I'm sure that I would have broken 5.
2007-2011: Indoor miles, all well under 5.
2012-2019: Mostly accomplished sub 5's by road miles or by Norse Relays 4x1600m with the occasional indoor mile. So more instances where my sub 5's weren't "official".
2020: Ran a 3k at sub 5 pace.
2021: Random sub 5 on the Huxley bike path. Slightly downhill and with wind at my back so again a questionable mile (3/11/2021).
2022: I did a better job this time, sub 5 on a track. This was a workout where I went 17:12 5k and then a 4:57 cutdown mile, all on my own (4/3/2022).