Fall is in the Air

Hey friends!

This should be a race recap post, but alas things didn’t go quite as planned yesterday. I’m sure you get tired of reading race recaps anyway, so I’m just doing what I can to keep things interesting over here.

Spoiler alert: You may fall before you fly.

I was pretty excited to run the local Turkey Trot yesterday. The race started less than a mile from the house. It’s hard to pass up a race that runs on your “home turf.” Due to road closures and police support, we have one 5K course that most of the local races have to use. The first mile is mostly flat with a few turns, the second mile is a long, gradual downhill and then the third miles is back up the long, gradual uphill.

Since you don’t get an actual recap, I’ll give you the “plan recap.” I had my race strategy nailed down. My goal for this race was 18:15-18:20, so I needed 5:52-5:54 average pace. I was aiming for 5:55, 5:45-5:50 (given the downhill) and 6:00 (given the uphill) splits. The plan was to “go for it” (in a semi-controlled fashion) during the second mile because I knew that the third mile was going to be tough, but I didn’t want to dip too far under V02 max pace and really crash on the last mile.

I felt really good about this plan and I was ready to get out there and chase that PR. Fall (LITERALLY) came back from its hiatus and graced us with some fabulous running weather! We woke up to temperatures in the upper 40s. It doesn’t get much better than that for running.

Daniel has been dealing with some sort of tendon injury in his foot. He has an appointment with an orthopedist Friday and we are hopeful that he will get some good news and be able to run again. In the meantime he is limited to biking and swimming. Since he wasn’t running, he went with me to the 5K. I was so glad to have him with me!

We left the house around 7:15 for an 8 a.m. race start. How nice is that?! I didn’t have to get up until after 6!

Here we are. I’m wearing GLOVES! WOO HOO! All smiles (for now).

I ran and Daniel biked the mile up to the race start. When we got there I went over to the pre-registration tent to get my bib, but (of course) they didn’t have me on the list. Lol! I don’t know how these things keep happening. They were SO NICE about it though and mentioned that there had been a few problems with the group and online registrations. I headed over to the day-of registration tent and got (re) signed up.

After that was all squared away, it was time to do another mile or so to warm up. Our friend Tracey ran with us and we ran the first mile of the course and looped back to the start. Once we got back, I wanted to hit the bathrooms real quick before the race started. I told Daniel, “I don’t even really have to go, but it’s just one of those things that I feel like I am supposed to do before a race.” The line at the start was really long, so we decided to run over another block and use a less well-known bathroom. Leave it to a runner to know where every single bathroom in the area is.

We had about 10 to 15 minutes until the race started, which was plenty of time. We started towards the other bathroom (Daniel was on the bike and I was running beside him), when all of a sudden … SPLAT. I fell. HARD.

I don’t even know how it happened, other than I just tripped over my own two feet. Silly feet. Get it together. If you are a runner, you will understand that falls are inevitable. It’s almost a right of passage. You’re not a real runner until you’ve lost a toenail, pooped your pants, fallen on a run, etc. We’re an odd bunch. In case you are wondering, I have done two of the three things listed in the preceding sentence (I’ll keep you guessing as to which two it is :)).

I have fallen before, but never like this! I think I have maybe fallen 4 times (of course, I could be forgetting a time or two). The first two times I was really lucky and came away without a scratch! I even thought I had perfected the “tuck and roll” technique. If you’ve been reading for a little while, you may recall that I also fell last fall. The tuck and roll became a tuck and splat. I managed to strain a rib muscle that time (circa September 2015).

This time, the fall was worse. I didn’t “tuck” at all, I just splat (or perhaps it is splatted …). I’ve not had to use the past tense of splat too often (Mom, when you read this let me know ;))

With no tuck and all splat, I managed to bust my knee and my lip (of all things) wide open. Note to self: DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT, try to break a fall with your face.

As soon as I went down, my first thought was “my teeth!” I was convinced that I was gonna open up my mouth to a big ‘ol hillbilly toothless grin. Thank goodness all of my teeth remained in place. They are sore, but seem to be fine otherwise. I am so glad that Daniel was there with me. If he wasn’t injured, he would’ve been doing his long run with his buddies and I would’ve been at the race by myself.

I got up, dusted myself off and stumbled over to the bathroom that we were originally headed for. We tried to clean my mouth out and stop the bleeding. At this point I got really dizzy and light-headed. I was pretty sure that I was going to pass out, but Daniel kept me “with it.” He kept telling me to keep my eyes open, prop my feet up over my heart, etc. I was NOT happy about any of this at the time, but it worked.

I hitched a ride home from a guy that saw us immediately after the “incident.” He asked me lots of questions on the way home. I think he was a tad skeptical that I had managed to bang myself up this bad by running. Ha. After we got back to the house, we had to figure out the next step. Daniel called and texted a few of the doctor friends and after pictures of my fat lip had been texted all around, everyone confirmed, “she’s gonna need stitches for that.”

Thrilled.

By far the biggest blessing of the day came when our running buddy, Ron, who also happens to be a plastic surgeon, met us at his office and stitched me right on up. Two stitches to the knee and three to the lip and I was good to go. This is actually the first time I’ve ever had stitches. He did a wonderful job. I can’t thank him enough!

People pay lots of money to get lips like this (err well, maybe not exactly like this).

We are stocked up on soup, frozen yogurt, regular yogurt, pudding, applesauce, bananas, etc. (basically anything mushy) and Daniel is taking good care of me.

I’ll be taking a few days (at a minimum) off from running or a few weeks, depending on how my battle wounds heal up. Ron told me that most doctors would probably tell me to take at least a week off, but he said a few days should be good enough. He’s a runner. He gets it. I’m just going to play that by ear and see how the knee feels.

As of Sunday afternoon, my lip is very fat and my knee and teeth are pretty sore. I’m walking okay (if you classify a hobble as a walk), but I don’t foresee any running or strenuous exercise in the immediate future. I am definitely not complaining about that. I am just really thankful that it wasn’t any worse. I will keep you posted on my “recovery.”

This concludes the race recap that never was. Stay upright out there guys! Anyone else have a good falling story?

P.S (because I want to end on a happier note). Yesterday was little Brookser’s 5th birthday! Where does the time go?! Happy birthday to our (not so) little booger!

Pre-fall (obviously).

Have a great week y’all!