Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

For the past five or six years, right around this time of the season, my sister and brother-in-law host a very chichi martini party. It’s catered and waitered and their (considerable) house is filled with about 75 guests–all duded upscale in tuxes or little black dresses or whathaveyou along those lines.

Fortunately, I was not planning to wear one of those little black dresses this year.

(While I have lost about 30 lbs since I started running, I am not yet downsized enough for that sorta thing, heh-heh… It’s a goal, though. It’s a goal. )

However, if I had been planning to wear one of those little Chanel numbas, I’d've had to scramble now to find an alternative. Because, for the first time since I started running a year and a half ago, I took a flying header Friday night when I was out for a run. It was towards the darker end of dusk and I was just coming out at the end of a nature trail onto a lighted street and I dunno if I missed a curb or what but I found myself momentarily free of Mother Earth’s gravitational grasp only to abruptly crash land on my hands and knees and roll onto my left side like I was a paratrooper landing at Arnhem. I felt more surprised than hurt and after I stood up and brushed the dirt off I started running again. (Possibly just to get the hell away from the people in the car who witnessed the entire thing and were probably sitting there, stupefied at the sight of this person who came flying outta the bushes, dropped and rolled, and then stood up and looked around with one of those furtive “Did anybody see that?” glances. To quote the estimable Pee Wee Herman, “I meant to do that.”) But when I got home and peeled my running pants down past my knees, I found this.

…which would not look too sexy, methinks, on display beyond the hemline of a Little Black Dress^TM.

For the first year or so after I started running, I rarely ran in the evenings. After the alarm going off at 5am and then a full day of work, I just didn’t have the energy to go out and run when I got home at night. But in recent months–since the hot summer weather abated–I have been taking my weekday runs after work and I have adjusted well enough so that it isn’t a struggle anymore. In fact, I’ve found that it has become a nice way to shake off the day and clear my head. I look forward to it.

Being a natural klutz (we all hafta be a “natural” at something, right?), I am usually pretty good about watching where I’m going–in specific effort to avoid exactly what happened last night. My inclination to keep keep my head down (at chi running clinics, my coach is always telling me, “Head up, Carla–head up!” ) to watch where the fuck I’m putting my feet is for self-preservation: the sidewalks and roads around town are an uneven mess. That’s one of the reasons why I enjoy running the Howard Watson Nature Trail. It’s flat and well-maintained crushed gravel–a little easier to negotiate than the tilted, ice-heaved cement sidewalks and crumbling, pockmarked side streets around town.

But it’s also unlit. And as I was getting close to the end of one segment (part of the trail runs through town, so there are a few intersections with streets), trying to decide whether or not it was still light enough to run the next segment and then return home on the lighted streets, down I went. My hands flew up to brace my reintroduction to the ground and the only thought that went through my head was something along the lines of, umm, “Oh, shit!”

All the way home I kept waiting for the pain to hit and make me slow to a walk. But it never happened. That’s why I was actually surprised when I got home and got my first look at my knees. Of course, they looked a lot worse than that photo–the blood was smeared and I couldn’t immediately tell how much skin had been scraped off. There’d been only a teeny hole ripped in my left pant leg, though, so when I got a look the unexpectedly bloody messes that lie underneath the pants, fear sucked my heart up into my throat. “Oh no, I’m fuuuuuucked.” But when I carefully dabbed them clean, I found that most of the initial frightening sight was just superficial. When I showed my dad, he said, “Well, it could be worse. It could’ve been your chin.” But I thought about it and told him that I’d kind of prefer it if it were my chin because at least a scraped chin wouldn’t threaten my ability to run.

Can you believe it?! I can’t. That’s how far it’s come for me. I’d rather go to the fancy-dress party with a big ol’ scab on my chin than risk an injury that might curtail my running. Good grief, I hardly know myself anymore.

I popped a coupla naproxen, applied some antibiotic, and then spent the evening on the couch, watching a movie (La Haine–which I highly recommend!) with ice packs on both knees to try to keep the swelling to a minimum. It seems to have helped because I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I awoke and peeked under the covers to find that my knees 1. weren’t very swollen, and 2. weren’t purple with bruising. I think it’ll be awhile before I kneel down on ‘em, but it could be a lot worse. If anything, my left arm feels like it got the worst of it. So I’ll lay off running for a few days and then take it from there. Not sure about swimming. I know it wouldn’t (physically) hurt, but I think I’ll wait ’til some scabs form. (Because, besides copious amounts of chlorine, I try not to think about what’s in that toxic water in the Y pool. I see all those little kids screaming and splashing in there with me and I shudder every time some of that water accidentally goes down my throat… *gag*)

You can count on me using my recovery from the tumble as an excuse to not dance at the martini party. Small mercies are better than none.

And, incidentally, you can also see why I won’t be wearing open-toed shoes at the party.

…at least the black skin finally fell off the offending toe. (For quite a few weeks there the whole freakin’ end of my toe looked like it was gonna rot and fall off. Like some kinda slow-moving necrotizing fasciitis. Guh.) And the nail looks closer to departure. But lookee at the nail beside it. Now it’s fucked too! Sweet jayzuz, I’m already wearing shoes that are a size and half larger than I wore a year ago. In an effort to preserve my feet, I’m afraid my next pair of shoes is gonna look like these:

Not. Sexy.