Circles of Pain

I was stung in the thigh by an uncompassionate insect earlier in the week. Now the wound has become infected. Where the insect stung is a tiny white circle, followed a concentric dark red circle of about 2 cm in diameter and a larger dark pink circle of about 6 cm in diameter. Where the flesh is pink, I can feel slight pain when I press upon it. Where it is dark red, all it takes is a brief brush of the hand to trigger off massive jolts of pain. Even walking around in long pants/jeans/berms hurt, because the fabric rubs against those circles of pain. Where the flesh is white, I only need to touch it once to learn my lesson NOT to touch it again.

So today, I spent over 2 hours waiting at the polyclinic to see the doctor for the insect sting, spoke to the doctor for about 3 minutes, and was discharged with a stack of antibiotics and some antibiotic cream. :P But good news. Doc also said that my foot injury (which I had reported to him two weeks ago) was neither a fracture nor gout. But he couldn't quite pin-point what the problem was, and recommended that I stay away from running for another couple of weeks.

After paying my medical bill, I went down to Suntec City and met up with the SgRunners for lunch at Suntec Swensens. It was great to meet up with the gang. I also popped by Swissotel, where some of my friends were putting up for the night before race-day tomorrow.

It's all quite exciting, really. Hosea from Habitat for Humanity Singapore is running. Paul from Club Rainbow is running. Mark from my present office is running. Sharon and the rest of the Y-Runners are running. My chums from my former workplace are running. The SgRunners are running, and so are my Mt Faber SAFRA running pals. Everyone's talking about hydration, nutritution, carbo-loading, power-gels, stretching, hitting the wall, going for the next forthcoming overseas marathon, personal best timings, pacing, etc. *sigh* I wish I were running too. *sigh* I'm out because of my foot injury, and to make matters worse, there are those horrible circles of pain on my thigh.

Tomorrow, I'll wake up early and meet Fd, Cosmic_Wind and whr to man the SgRunners support station along the 42-km route, near the ECP MacDonalds. It's the least I can do to participate in the Marathon...short of running it myself.