My broken toe has revealed a lot to me. Mostly through the stages of grief.
In the first stage, Denial, I was convinced that I could still do the Death Race, which is in three weeks from now.
Within the hour, I was in the second stage, Anger, and lashing out at people who had the audacity to think that, maybe, running 125km with a broken toe wasn’t a good idea.
Third stage, Bargaining followed as I planned to listen to doctors and they might give me approval. As long as they aren’t quacks. A quack being a doctor who doesn’t give approval.
Then Depression, the fourth stage, hit. And it revealed a lot to me. In my quest for a relationship, I have essentially Given Up. This has ruined my self-esteem. To compensate, I do things that to make me a not-pathetic person. If I can’t have a qualitatively good life, I can do it quantifiably. An ultramarathon is quantifiable; it is an awesome feat of determination. But when this injury hit, well, I can’t do the Death Race. I don’t have a fallback option. It brings the qualitative side into focus.
So, the solution was to find other insane things to do so I can ignore the ugly side. The doctor I saw said biking was okay. And I already planned to do the 185km Le Tour de l’Alberta. Why don’t I see if I can bicycle to Calgary in one day? That would be a similarly stupid thing to do.
I have a final doctor to see on Tuesday. I will give her the final say on what level of stupidity I can do.

My mother thinks I should still do the Death Race. What’s a small toe anyway?