distractions

I started out yesterday thinking that I was going to write about running up an unknown arroyo by the Sandia mountains. As usual I was distracted by something. I do not remember what it was, anyway as I was running up this totally unknown(to me) arroyo I started feeling this sharp pain in my foot like a goathead(we call them Toros) sticker had gotten into my shoe. I am always conversing with myself and in this case I was arguing over the toughness doctrine and the discretion is the better part of valor doctrine. The basic premise of toughness is simple "never stop never give up never show weakness" It has always seemed to me to lack a little in the commonsense department. However,I had found it a very useful tool in surviving a very confusing and manipulated childhood so I am not averse to using it as an operational theory.  In this case I am listening to the body and considering practicing toughness and ignoring the sensation and balancing this against the cause and long term of whatever is causing the pain. Since I was not running for my life and had an interest in not taking days off from running and the pain sensation felt not familiar I decided to use my frontal lobes and stop to remove the offending object from my shoe. When I removed the shoe there was nothing but sand. Generally in this type of situation I would just put the shoe on, but as usual in cases where things do not add up they did add up and as our minds are wont to do mine kept insisting that there was more to this case of mild stabbing sensation in the shoe so I took the extra few seconds to check the sole of the shoe and found a cactus pod embedded in the sole. I could not believe that it could pierce an in of sole but it had. I do not understand how it was in such a position that one of the spines would be upright and not bend or fall over when I stepped on it but there it was ,,another reminder to me to listen to that little voice(s) in your hea