Limping on Leap Day

If there was ever a Miss Klutzy USA pageant, I would being the reigning queen. Then I’d probably trip during my acceptance speech, a la Miss USA Rachel Smith. (Full disclosure: I watched this live and totally felt a kindred spirits thing for her. Sure, I laughed, but she still looks smokin’ hot after suffering the worst embarrassment known to beauty queens. I would have stayed on the ground and just bawled.)

So last night at running class, Coach S pulled me aside to discuss the workout and warned me about the lousy pavement conditions where we were running. She told me to alert the runners of any particularly bad spots and be careful. Sirens should have gone off in my head at that point. I’m already working with a peripheral vision deficit because I have to wear my glasses in preparation for the laser surgery. Well sure enough, in the middle of our third interval I turned my ankle on broken pavement in a dark spot where a street lamp was out. My students asked if I was okay and I responded, “Fuck! No! Keep running!” Somehow we stayed on pace but as soon as we stopped I knew I was done for the night. Coach S sent me limping back to school (a lovely mile south of where I got hurt) and Coach JC drove me home.

Cycling friend QZ came over and cheered me up with a pint of Haagen-Dazs raspberry sorbet and an ice pack, and then I started to feel a little better. Also helpful: copious amounts of ibuprofen or as I like to call it, ibooze. “Sports injuries are so cool, they make you seem tough!” he said, but I just laughed. He obviously hasn’t spent enough time with me during a NO RUNNING sentence to know that I’m not exactly one to suffer in silence when I can’t work out. Let’s just hope, for everyone’s sake, that this is just a quick little injury and I’m back to running on Monday. My ankle is sore and stiff but only a tiny bit swollen and I still have a decent (albeit painful) range of rotation. I’ll be fiiiine. Especially because there is some of that sorbet still left in the freezer.