Embarrassing moment

Tonight I ran 8 miles! Wooooooo!  I thought I was going to die by the time I got back to the start, but that's not really the point now is it?  I'm not truly sure how I am going to make that last mile on Sunday though.  Seriously.  It was getting extremely tough by the 8th mile.  My legs didn't seem to want to work anymore and I could tell I was slowing down.  The good news is that we did it in 1:20.  So even if I want to give up on Sunday, by the 9th mile, I have at least 25 more minutes for the final mile.  It's nice to have that extra bit of time I suppose.  We also ran part of the route the 15K takes, so that was helpful.  The 60 degree weather helped a lot too.  Unfortunately, by Sunday, it's supposed to be back down to 30s again.
Since my knee has seriously been hurting, I decided to try a new combo.  I've used a brace, which didn't seem to do anything.  The same goes for wrapping.  So I upped the ante and I decided to take some aleve, which helped quell the residual pain.  I also gave in and tried Kinesio tape.  Supposedly this tape is created to stretch skin and help blood flow, lessening the pain.  There's a very specific way to use it and I tried to follow the video, but I'm not 100% sure I put it on in the exact right spot.  Since it was the first time, I can't decide yet whether it helped.  My knee didn't feel as bad tonight, but it could've been because of the weather, the aleve, or the tape.  I really may never know.
But the title of this post is embarrassing moment and so here it comes.  I was using my zip-ups and went with both earphones today.  (There were 5 of us running, so I felt that it was safer to have both in, since others did not.)  About 3 miles in, my arm caught the zip and ripped the earphones out of my ears.  I looked down and noticed that one of my earpieces was missing the rubber piece that goes on the outside. Figuring I had lost it, and being very disappointed about, since they are brand new, I stuck the other earphone in my right ear and went on running.  When we got to the 7.5 mile mark, I switched ears.  That's when I started noticing that something felt a little bit funny.  It seemed like there was something inside my ear, but I just couldn't figure out what.  Until I stuck my finger in and clear my ear and realized that it was the rubber piece from my headphone!  Turns out, when I pulled the earphones out, the rubber piece must've gotten stuck in my ear.  Not noticing it, I shoved the other earpiece in on top of it, therefore shoving that rubber piece deep into my ear canal.  Long story short, at the end of our run, I had to have Rebz's mom, who, luckily, is a nurse, use some tweezers to pull the rubber piece out.  The bright side is that I didn't lose the rubber piece like I originally thought.  The bad news is, now I'm wondering if my left ear has been hurting for the past few weeks because I did the same thing with a different pair of headphones.  If that truly is the case, clearly I am an idiot and should no longer be trusted to use earphones.  (I'm pretty sure that's not the case with my left ear.  I noticed immediately that my right ear hurt and I could tell there was something off about my hearing.)  I'll let you know if there really is another rubber earpiece lodged in my ear though.
Unfortunately, my phone was dying tonight and I had to make a choice between music and mapping a route, so of course, I picked music.  I have no pictures from Charity Miles to show you.  Lucky for you, I DO have a picture of the earpiece stuck in my ear.  It's pretty up close and personal, but, it's also a picture of an ear, so really, I can't believe you're expecting to much.  Here it is.

I know it just looks like an ear, but that black spot is not the ear canal, it's actually the black rubber earpiece.  Wicked embarrassing.....