Crash, boom ,bang

****WARNING****  Just giving you a heads up that I will be posting a picture that some may not want to see.  It's kinda icky and bloody.  *I* don't think it's bad at all, but hey, not everyone is me.  So if you don't want to see the picture, don't look.  You've been warned......

On Friday I was on my run, in broad daylight (I note that because I sometimes get flack for running in the early morning dark) and took a spill.  I was booking it along (7:50ish pace) and tripped and fell.  I went back later to look at the spot and I now see where the sidewalk meets the driveway and there is a little corner that sticks up.  It caught my foot and I went flying forward toward the ground.  I instinctively put my hands out to catch myself.  Yeah, I know, you are suppose to tuck and roll.  I have no idea if I would have done that or not (hence my above wording: instinctively), but in my defense I was on a very busy street.  I honestly can't tell you what kind of traffic was whizzing past me.  I know some was, I remember hearing cars zoom past me while this all went on.  However, I don't know if they were on my side of the street or going the opposite direction.  Either way, I was in no place to tuck and roll anywhere unless I wanted to do so out onto a main road (Fremont St.).  Yes, that's my defense and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, I fell and right away I could feel that it was not good, at all.  My knee and both hands screamed out in pain.  I'm sure I screamed too, perhaps more out of frustration.  Runner down is never a good thing!!!!  When I turned myself around into a sitting position I first looked at my hands.  They were so on fire, I expected them to be raw and bleeding.  Nope, not a scratch.  I kept looking at them though.....they burned so bad!  Ouch!!!!  Next I took a look at my knee.  My first reaction????  Direct quote....no lying "I LOVE THESE PANTS!!!!"  Yeah I saw blood and it hurt, but maaaaaaaan, my favorite capri's had a hole in it!!  Yeah, HUGE deal to me!!!!

I worked myself up and took a few steps to make sure nothing was broken.  I was just a half block away from my church.  I told myself I would get myself up there and go into the office to use the phone to call home for my daughter to pick me up.  I was done!  As I moved along though, despite my knee and hands hurting really bad, everything else was feeling ok.  I never did get my pace back to what it was, but I picked the pace back up to an ok speed.  Besides I didn't want to hobble into the church office and attract the attention of others.  Yeah, pretty sure my ego was massive bruised at that point as well.  Not to mention feeling so embarrassed.  So I kept going and managed to get myself home ok.  Getting the run done is important, right?!?!?

The rest of my run gave me some time to get a little perspective.  First and most important I was ok.  Well, at least in a big picture point of view.  It really could have been so much worse.  I was able to realize that hey, these things happen.  Maybe not a lot, but it happens.  I'm not the first runner to have tripped and fallen.  I won't be the last (but let's hope it's a long while).  I'm a total tough chik anyway.  I can handle what happened and I'll survive!!  So I decided to embrace and deal with it!!

Upon further inspection of injuries I also scraped up my elbow.  Not really bad, but I'm sporting a nice scab there as well.  My right hand/wrist hurt really bad too.  Like, almost not in a good way.  It hurt to move it and forget about lifting anything, it wasn't going to happen without a lot of pain.  Guess what though, life had to move on and while I was extra careful I had to get the rest of my day done.  I took the kids to the Y to play and swim and I had my Y training that weekend, as well.  Life goes on, hurting or not.  I still have a teeny bit of hurt in that wrist, but it's improving a lot each day.  A bad sprain maybe???

Well, it's not a fall without some pictures (a gazillion of them) to document my injuries.  So I made you a nice little collage:

The ones across the top and first one on the bottom left were taken within an hour of the fall.  The bottom middle one was about 24 hours later.  It was very weepy and oozy!!  Bottom right was taken right before I sat down to post this.  Most appropriately wearing my new Tough Chik compression socks.  That's right, I'm tough.  Things hurt, I'm bruised in a few spots, but I'm going to be a-ok :)