Yeah, fuck Curt Schilling.

Look, that toe is a problem toe. This happens all the time. I ran to Central Park today. About halfway into the run, coming over the Queensboro Bridge, the problem toe started to hurt—the little piggy that stays home—and I knew then that I’d probably have a bloody sock when I was done. I didn’t even think about it the rest of the run. I was listening to Iron Maiden’s Live After Death, and really, if there’s any cure for a bad blister, it’s Iron Maiden.

On the subway ride home from the park, I noticed the toe of my shoe looked a little pink. I remembered the pain on the bridge and my toe started to hurt again. I thought, “Wow, it soaked through my shoe. That must be a lot of blood.” And there was a lot of blood, as you can see it was fucking gross. It took about five minutes for it to wash out in the shower. I’ve had gruesome injuries from distance running before, mostly just really gross blisters. Both of my big toes turned black the first time I ran The Pittsburgh Marathon, they stayed that way for over a year. Always trim your toenails.

The bloodiest running injury I’ve ever had is also the funniest. About 5 years ago, when we first moved into our current apartment, I was coming off of my sad attempt at vegetarianism—a diet consisting of bloomin’ onions, fish and chips, and cheese pizza—so I decided that if I wanted to loose weight, exercise was the answer. I was going to get back into running. It was a beautiful Sunday morning. My girlfriend, Tracie, was out of town that weekend, but due back later that afternoon. I laced up my running shoes, stepped out of our walk-up onto the sidewalk, and took off running. When I got to the end of the block, I tripped and flew face-forward into the pavement, putting up my hands to break the fall, taking off most of the skin. There were bits of gravel and broken glass wedged into the open gaping mess, while what was left of my palms dangled in flakes of skin. This wasn’t just skinned hands. This was gruesome. There was a lot of blood. I freaked out. I went home and tried to wash the dirt and glass out of my hands, but the pain was excruciating. By the time I was done, there was blood all over the apartment. I called Tracie to tell her what had happened, and she laughed. “No, you don’t understand,” I told her. “My hands are my livelihood!” She laughed some more. I told her to stop laughing. She kept laughing. When she finally got home and saw my hands, she dry-heaved. Then she apologized for laughing.