The run that was more painful than the marathon

After a few days off from running, I decided to go back to the gym on Wednesday. I did 20 minutes on the elliptical (torture!) and took a body pump class.

On Thursday and Friday, I had nice, easy runs and was feeling great. On Saturday I left for my run with no real plan, just to run what felt good. Around mile 2.5 I ran into my sister, Katie, near harbor east. She was 1.5 miles into a 7 mile run, but hadn’t done more than 4 miles this year. We started to run together, thinking we would split up in about 3 miles.

She was having so much fun that at mile 7 she told me she wanted to do 10. We added a couple miles and head down the final street to complete the run. Just as my watch said 9.5 miles, I tripped over some sort of curb/bump in the sidewalk and wiped out. I landed on my left hand and knee. It was all kind of in slow motion, but I just couldn’t catch myself.

After the initial shock, I sat up and felt so much pain in my left middle finger. My hand was scraped badly too, as well as my knee. Unfortunately/fortunately, my fall was witnessed by a man sitting on his stoop. This made it more embarrassing, but he was nice enough to go into his house and bring me out some peroxide and paper towels. We poured the peroxide on my cuts and tried to get some of the blood off with the paper towels. We thanked him and tried to start hobbling home. (Not pictured: me with paper towels stuffed into my compression socks with a bloody knee/hand and my sister holding a roll of paper towels).

Even though I was less than a mile away, walking was taking too long so I ran. My knee felt ok, it was just my hand that was throbbing. When I got home I collapsed on the floor. Rob and Katie helped clean me up and put on some band aids. After some back and forth we decided I should take a trip to Patient First for an X-Ray of my finger. I somehow managed to take a shower (you’re welcome to all the staff at Patient First) and get dressed with one hand.

The process at patient first was easy enough. They did the X-Ray and told me I sprained my finger. I was a little surprised because I broke a different finger a few years ago and I thought this hurt more. They gave me a splint and sent me home.

I went about the rest of my Saturday still in some pain, but it was getting a little better. But I could tell it was really swollen. Then, around 12 this afternoon, I got a call from Patient First asking me to come back in. They had someone else look at the X-Ray and saw a fracture in my finger and possibly my hand. So off we went back there, a little annoyed (I had to pay another co-pay, and its a good 20 minute drive). Today’s doctor felt my hand and since I didn’t have any pain where they saw a possible fracture in the X-ray, he wasn’t too worried. But the finger is fractured at the joint so I’ll need to wear the splint for 4-6 weeks and see an orthopedist.

I am still planning to run- in fact I think its the only exercise I’ll really be able to do for awhile. However, typing is a pain so I don’t know how often I will blog. At least this happened after the marathon! The other bright side is that it was my non-dominant hand. Holding a wine glass won’t be a problem:)