Where I classify myself as injury prone

I am not a graceful person. When I do yoga, it’s an exercise in me not falling down and trying to avoid farting while hiding the erection that I’ll inevitably get during corpse pose. I’ve been told that I have a near-perfect running posture, but, well, when I run, it feels like I’m a set of completely disjointed parts, with each moving at their own pace, in their own pattern. I do not allow myself to ski or ice skate or, really, do much with anything involving frozen water, because, well, I just know the end result would be “bad.”

So, I’m injury prone. The problem is that I seldom have good stories to tell from my injuries. The worst injury in my life, I broke my elbow while doing a good deed for my mom. I gave myself a stress-fracture of my left radius slipping & falling on an ice cube, as I was making myself the first drink of the night. I broke my tailbone crossing the street to buy a Christmas present during an ice storm (see, it’s best to keep me away from large quantities of frozen water).

And, this past weekend, I hurt my back slipping & falling on a dog bed.

Saturday night, I had just poured myself a glass of wine¹ and was walking upstairs to have said drink in bed. I turned off the light in the kitchen and went to open the baby gate when “whoops” and I was suddenly on my ass.

One of the dog’s beds, essentially a fluffy pillow, was on the kitchen floor, and, with it being dark, I had no idea. I splattered the wall with red and landed hard. It didn’t feel too good.

Sunday morning, I woke up with a very stiff back, and when I started to think about getting a morning run in, my son looked at me with his little lazy early morning smile, so I allowed myself to head back to bed. I keep hearing that the time that baby cuddles are freely-given is expiring, so I might as well gather them while they’re available.

I went to church, played with the good old organ, and then went out to play a benefit concert for the symphony. Only, well, I had a little bit of time to kill. And it was a nice day . . . and my back hurt, so, surely, I could do a little run and get things loosened up, right?

I parked my truck, changed into my gym clothes (because that’s what I had on me), and prepared for the worst². I ran the last 5k of the Harrisburg Marathon route (I must admit that it’s a very weird feeling to be running toward City Island, along the river, on a fresh pair of legs) before turning around.

I had no pain in my thighs, or nipples, or armpits . . . all of the trouble zones from running with the wrong clothing were trouble-free. My feet felt great, even though I hadn’t been running in awhile . . . but my back? Well, that’s a different story.

I’m now writing this the next day, and I can tell that it’s getting better . . . but ouch.