At least, that's how those types of injuries are now. There was a time when these types of injuries were major. For instance, many years ago before my children were born, I played on my church softball team, which I wish was still in existence. I was on first base, and someone hit an outfield home run. As I rounded second, I tripped and went down, hard.
Remember, I was 250 pounds at the time. Instinctively I put my arms out, but after the impact, the soft dirt of the baseline made me slide a good 20 feet. Not a purposeful slide either, it was completely out of control. I skinned myself up pretty badly, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was somehow I injured my right arm and shoulder to the point where I could barely move it. It wasn't broken, but it affected every aspect of my life, including work. I remember it was at least 3 or 4 months before I was back to normal.
Another time, I was out doing night photography on Pass Road, out among the Sutter Buttes. The camera was on a tripod, and I was waiting for a long exposure to finish, just wandering around in the dark. To the side of the road, I took a step to what looked like solid ground, only to realize too late that it was a 3-foot-deep ditch. In I went, and my foot went to the side, making it difficult to walk.
I had it x-rayed and again, no break. After a short while it healed, but with this particular injury I kept re-injuring it by doing not much of anything. One time I was doing dishes and I stepped wrong. BAM, down I went, and the pain was so bad that I was in tears. Re-injuring the thing happened at least once or twice a week for what seemed like six months or more.
Shortly after I started losing weight, perhaps 15 pounds in, I took a hike with a friend from church. At one point, I slipped and down I went, but this time, I was able to get right up. In fact, the thought of how quickly I recovered made me laugh out loud. Of course, I explained all of this to my friend.
Nowadays, when I fall like that it's really no big deal. I fall, curse myself, get my bearings, and off I go. It's amazing the difference that extra weight can have on a person in so many aspects of life. Yes, it slows you down, but you become less graceful. And when injured, it takes that much longer to recover. Thank goodness I never had major injuries back then!
Today on my run I decided to treat it more like a tempo run, going close to what my goal pace will be on Saturday morning. I was actually proud of myself, and ran an amazingly good 5k (for me, anyway). When I got to 3.25 miles, I tripped on an upturned portion of sidewalk. That's not what made me go down though, in fact I caught myself.
No, the sidewalk was a little damp and there was some sort of fungus, whatever you want to call it. This made the sidewalk slippery, so the second my foot came down, SLIP, down I went. Hand first.
Elbow second.
Knee third, but with a strong showing.
But as I said before, recovery time is much, much better now. I probably would have gotten up faster than I did, had I not been lying there screaming at myself. Just to make sure I was alright though, I walked for a quarter mile. Then I started up again to finish it off. And there's a bonus, too, because my split chart gives everyone the bird! So I got that goin' for me.
Splits
Mile 1: 8:40.78
Mile 2: 8:18.98
Mile 3: 8:29.16
Mile 4: 13:36.67
Mile 5: 8:44.75
Mile 6: 8:40.09
.20 mi: 1:38.04 (8:17/mi)
6.2 miles total, 58:08.47, 9:22/mi pace, 766 calories burned.
My goal for today was to run as well as I could as an indicator as to how well I'll do in Saturday's Turkey Trot. Things look good!
