Balancing Fortitude and Prudence

I imagine that at some point, my right foot will be doing better. Actually, I thought this morning was going to be it. :) New shoes on my feet, I headed out in the wee hours and tried to minimize the hills. After about a a third of a mile, though, my foot started throbbing again. I stopped a couple of times, stretched it, moved on. Ended up walking quickly back, in the end.
Getting up early turned out to be helpful. A colleague from work had sent out an email requesting help with an early morning task due to illness. Nice to be able to help out and even though the run was far from really vigorous, I still feel a bit of the energy that getting up this way seems to impart.
Makes me want to buy an iPod, though. I have a big old mp3/cd player that I use in the car. (Recently, I've been making my way through Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron on my way into work.) But that's not really going to work for a run. I wonder if the hard disk based iPods are any good when running....