someone to watch over me
i put another notch on the racing resume this weekend when i traveled to reading, PA for a 15K trail race. i did this race last year and was 1st F; this year i was second. i walked away with a pig trophy and a 2-lb bag of Godiva chocolate. that is the good bling, champs.
oh, and i bled a lot too. i was running a flat, fast section of the trail to the toon of NIN's the good soldier, when without warning i was suddenly airborne. it was pretty cool - said the guy right behind when we were telling tall tales after crossing the line - and so graceful. i thought you hit a tripwire or something because your heels actually kicked up and for a second or two you looked just like Superman.
superman never landed so hard though. i drilled my right knee pretty good and scraped up my left shin, but it wasn’t ‘til i crossed the line that i noticed my right lower leg was commendably bloody. medics are that-a-way - pointed the promoter as he ripped off my number stub.
when i presented at the ambulance, the guys waved me right in. i’m on anticoagulants, so it’s worse than it looks. i mean, it looks worse than it is. was that right? i meant the good one - i explained feebly. Mr. Take-Charge medic didn’t look as relieved by my statement as i’d intended, and he had Junior clean me up while he asked me questions which i addressed rather distractedly after noticing that Junior had a really fine ass, and the day i’m not lucid enough to appreciate a fine ass is the day you should put me down like Old Dixie.
- is that your typical bony structure? - i looked where he pointed and appreciated a lump the size of a large gumdrop at the top of my shin. it was purply-black, too, just like the licorice ones (which are my favorite, by chance).
- no that is not my typical bony structure – i asserted, racking my brain to figure out how Junior might be persuaded to fetch something from the cabinet overhead in front of me.
- i say that because with you being on anti-coagulants, we need to be cognizant of the possibility of a clot escaping from this area – he indicated my gumdrop – and traveling to your lungs. are there gauze pads up there, i wondered, or maybe IV drips. maybe i could ask Junior how big those storage areas are and he would open them one-by-one to show me.
- i had a buddy who died from an embolism caused by something just like this. a paramedic, 34 years old, 2 kids. how far are you from home? are you here alone? - erp?? my attention shifts.
- yes, and an hour and a half away.
- okay, if you feel ANY shortness of breath, don’t play around. you call an ambulance right away, understand?
you know what's really nice? here are these two people taking care of me, me whom they don't know from adam and they're not asking me for a single thing except to take care of myself. for the most part, i work off a Myself Alone MO, so when caring swoops in from left field i feel ambushed and a bit moony.
- i understand.
Junior fashioned a make-shift ice-pack out of a blue latex glove and bound me up so that i could make a relatively unimpeded bee-line to the food table where i stuffed clutches of pink and blue peeps in my mouth until i nearly fainted from a sugar rush.
on the way home i crafted this haiku:
oh peeps i love your
sticky sweetness you make my
vi-lent heart beat fast.
10 comments:
Ow, sounds horrible, but congratulations on the run.
to you as well, FMC. were you sore after friday's run?
Satdee, and nope, not until Sunday, and then it was mostly my chest and shoulders, which fortunately I eased with booze. Is your leg all the colours of the rainbow?
i remember you lamenting arms & shoulders before. do you think you're tensing your upper body when you run? you might try shaking out your arms once in a while to loosen 'em up.
my knee isn't nearly as bad as i thought it'd be. i think it was the peeps. do you have peeps?
I have peeps, but they're gays or italian or cat lovers, and probably not what you mean.
You're right about the running, I do need to loosen out a bit, I'm economical with my arm swing and am probably more tense than I need to be, although I was trying hard to relax.
Going to do some interval training tomorrow night, I'll work on it then.
You're lucky you're not worse, sounds like a hell of a spill you took. Glad you're okay.
pizz-eeps are teh sh_t. and i'm now convinced they're more effective for recovery than chocolate milk.
in addition to shaking out your arms, also think about
-- your shoulders & hands acting as anchor pivot points, while your elbows hang free
-- keeping your hands @ waist level and cupping them gently as tho you're cradling potato chips
-- not thinking too much.
i am lucky i'm not worse -- dude in the ambulance before me did a total face-plant & was covered in blood, and yet the medics didn't flinch. donned latex, of course, but didn't flinch.
Congrats! You got Chocolate and some well-deserved TLC. Too cool.
and u got NIN that hasn't been released yet. :)
hey good story again finn commiserations on the tumble, could we see some pics sometime, i know this would be difficult for the in-flight ones but the after-gore might be a possibility don't worry about the guy's ass of no interest to me ... thanks so much for these adventure notes. collect them and put them in a book. with illustrations, please and an appendix listing drinks scoffed in the process. thank you.
thank you, adam.
it is you -- and FMC, and subhangi, and teho, and mostly-silent kath -- who continue to inspire me, so thanks.
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