Like I Hadn't Missed A Beat

So I'm going to be upfront with you right now - I'm posting this for two reasons:

1. I have a pathological need to tell everyone how stupid I am sometimes.
2. I need an excuse to publish the cool pic of my bloody hand at the end.

Having said that, first let me say how glad I am to be back running again.

Neighborhood Lights

That's not to say I didn't enjoy the walking. Made some fun trips with Zeus around the neighborhood and beyond. We saw Christmas light displays (some guady, some beautiful, some that definitely fell into the "why even bother" category), explored areas I'd never been to before, saw a coyote near a green belt area one night, made neighborhood dogs bark and stray cats cower in fear - the fun was never-ending!

More Neighborhood Lights

The thing about walking I liked the most, though, was the opportunity to get caught up on a lot of music I had missed because there wasn't time to listen to it with the attention it deserved. Walking around a near-deserted Tulsa neighborhood at 5a.m. for a couple of hours really allowed me to listen to the music with no distractions (other than Zeus tugging the leash to chase after the tenth rabbit that morning that didn't have the good sense to sleep in).

Even More Neighborhood Lights

I'm no doctor - I don't even play one on t.v. - but I firmly believe that the reason my rehab went so well (and quickly) is that I didn't stop. I couldn't run, but I kept moving, and I think that made all the difference. This was never more evident to me than when I stepped on the scale this past weekend, a full three weeks after I broke my toe and had to stop running, and found that I had actually lost a full pound during that three week stretch! Trust me, my eating habits didn't change - I'm not that disciplined! - so the only thing I can "blame" it on is that fact that, while I had my share of "poor Steve can't run" pity parties, I didn't let that stop me from being active.

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Driving home from the dog park with Zeus last night, it occurred to me that I hadn't felt any pain in my foot for nearly 24 hours...and being the OCD mess that I am, took that to mean it was time for me to start running again.

I had originally planned to go out the Saturday morning, December 1st, and run a mile just to see how it felt. That would have been exactly one month (well, four weeks) since I broke my toe - a nice round number, I felt.

We pulled into LaFortune (fortunately I had worn sweats and sneakers to the dog park) and I got out of the car and started my normal pre-run stretch routine, starting it off with a 2:00 plank. Oh my God! was I out of shape, stretching wise. It was a cool (but not uncomfortably cold) evening - any colder, and I would have used that excuse to not go through with it. But I finished my stretching, plugged in my earbuds, leashed up Zeus, and off we went.

I was only going to run a mile then turn around and walk the mile back to the car. However, as we approached the mile marker by the old tennis courts, I was just getting the rust out of my joints and was starting to hit my stride, so decided to push on for a second mile. After that, we could easily walk the last mile around to the parking lot.

But I actually got stronger (and felt great) as we approached the second mile marker. My first mile clocked in at 9:13, my second at 9:04. I was still bound and determined to walk the final mile as a cool down, but wanted to run one more mile, so as Julia announced in my ears that I had completed my second mile, I swung Zeus around and we headed back the way we came.

(As an aside, "Julia" is actually her name - I'm using a new app, Runtastic Pro for WP7, and it specifically states that her name is Julia. She'll always be "Bambi" in my heart, but it would be rude not to use her actual name, I suppose.)

The third mile was a little tougher - I hit a bit of a wall about halfway through (2.5 miles at that point, which is about where I was walling it a month ago). It was settled, we'd finish the third mile and walk the fourth.

This is what running four miles after a month off
looks like!

But as we approached the third mile marker, I thought about the course ahead of me, the trail that I had just run eighteen minutes ago. Primarily uphill going one way, we had a lot of downhill going back, so we decided to try and run the fourth mile.

We completed the third mile with a decent split of 9:17, and as we crested the second to last hill just after that third mile marker, we poured it on, finishing a strong fourth mile in 8:21! It was like I hadn't missed a beat...



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And so now the moment you've read this far for, my first-ever faceplant.

I woke up this morning feeling great! No ill effects from the four-miler the night before. I had convinced myself that I would need to walk this morning, but I felt so good following my plankaday and coffee that I decided we'd try to run three miles or so, just through the neighborhood.

I saddled up the mutt, started the music and GPS app, and off we went. We cruised west towards one of the main roads that frames our neighborhood, and I made the turn onto the sidewalk and headed north. (Tulsa is notorious for it's lack of sidewalk infrastructure - the four-square-mile block I live in has sidewalks around 75% of it, virtually no sidewalks within, which means I do a lot of walking and running in the streets or through front yards.)

And that's when the sidewalk reached up and grabbed me. I never saw it coming. I stumbled, tried to catch myself, then down I went like Joe Frazier. Lying on my side, my first thought was my foot - slight tingling, but seemed okay. Then the palms of my hands started to hurt. It was cold enough and I had peeled enough skin off of them (and the top of my right hand somehow, as well) to make them hard to use. Then I realized the GPS was still running, so I painfully fumbled for my phone, and finally got the app paused. It was too late, however - the split was pretty well shot at that point.

Zeus just stood there, annoyed that we had stopped.

How I scraped the TOP of my hand I'll
never know...!

After about thirty seconds, I pulled myself up, picked up my glasses from the ground, restarted the app and started running again. We completed the first mile and were well into the second, but the throbbing in my palms wouldn't stop, so we turned for home to call it a morning.

In the end, I seem no worse for wear - hands and right knee skinned up, shoulder a bit sore from where I stopped my fall - but no apparent damage to anything I need to actually run (feet, legs, joints and phone all made it through unscathed). So I'll be back out again tomorrow morning, basking in the glow of being able to finally run again.