So I was totally anxious about my ten mile run this morning. I don't really know why, I guess because it's THE LAST LONG RUN, next time it's for real. For some reason I was intimidated and worried.
It also doesn't help that last year on my ten mile run I fell for the first time ever while running and banged myself up pretty good. I very carefully planned a route that did NOT return me near where I fell last year so I could avoid that spot. But I did think about that this morning.
But I decided I just wanted to go out and run and just really enjoy my run. I haven't enjoyed a lot of my runs lately because I'm so worried about time because I have a time goal this year. I think I've finally gotten over worrying about that so I just wanted to run.
So I'm off, running, la la la, honestly having a good run and enjoying myself and thinking how glorious this is. Flew through five miles, almost to six, la la.
I looked at my GPS watch and saw I was almost to six miles and I thought "Okay, so about forty minutes left." I don't know what happened next. Last year I saw the spot in the sidewalk, thought I had cleared it, and did not. I don't remember seeing any breaks in the sidewalk. I don't know if I slipped on a sweet gum ball which are EVERYWHERE in this town and have been my biggest fear since starting running (people routinely sprain their ankles slipping on them.) I don't know if I just plain tripped over my own feet. All I know is about ten seconds after I looked at my watch, I was falling.
"Ohhhhhh dammit" is what came out of my mouth. Almost like "aw shucks!" Just kind of a calm acceptance of "Welp, here I am. Falling. Again." Last year I freaked out mid-fall and yanked my arms back (artist's fear of falling, catching myself on my hands, and breaking my wrists...) and caught myself mostly on my FACE. So this year I kind of did a tuck-and-roll. I had a Quickdraw water bottle on my right hand and most of the impact actually hit there - squirted a bunch of water on the widewalk, haha. My opposite elbow caught the impact on that arm.
Now this is where you guys have to understand the insanity that occurs in a distance runner's mind. Before I did anything else. I was on the ground having just fallen. I didn't even check for injuries.
I thought "PAUSE THE GPS WATCH PAUSE IT QUICK QUICK."
MY GPS HAS AUTO-PAUSE. But I often pause it myself because it responds quicker, obviously, if I hit pause/resume rather than wait for it to register I have stopped moving and pause. Save a few seconds. THAT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO ME AT THAT MOMENT. STOP THE TIME RUNNING, SAVE A FEW SECONDS OFF MY RUN TRACKING.
So then I sat up and STILL didn't check for injuries. I looked around to see if anybody had seen me fall. Well, mercifully, it looked like very few if any people had seen me. Nobody came running in a panic like last year anyway. So I'm sitting on the ground checking for injuries. Knee is skinned... other knee not too bad. Right hand has a small chunk out it, arm and elbow fine. Other hand and arm are fine - elbow - gravel all up in it and it's bleeding pretty bad.
I've got my water bottle so I casually poor my water on my elbow to clean it out, and as I'm sitting there, I say out loud to myself "Well. Ten mile runs are bad luck."
I get up, look around some more to make sure nobody is like "HAHA THAT GIRL TOTALLY BIFFED IT." Some guy is out doing yard work on the other side of the street several houses down but appears oblivious, or is just being gracious and ignoring my embarrassment. I'm totally doing some stretches like "Oh, la la, I just stopped for a break, that's all... no, I didn't fall... I was sitting on the ground because I WANTED to... la la la..."
Then I ran my last four miles.
My knee hurts pretty bad but it's not swollen like it was last year, I think once it scabs over it will be okay. The chunk out of my hand is gross and quite painful. But it only took three bandaids to cover up everything I thought was rough. I'm out of benzocaine spray so I'm off to Target to buy some even though I took a shower once I got home and carefully tried to clean out all my owwies.
No more ten mile runs ever. If I ever do this again I'm either stopping at 9 or I'm SKIPPING the ten and going for an eleven.
That was it. Two taper runs this week, 5K on Friday, then it's The Real Deal on Saturday.