Scary Moment

Happy 35th birthday to my wife! Andrea, you are the greatest person I have ever known. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you, but I’m thankful you’re my wife. I cannot begin to explain the happiness you’ve brought to my life! I merely live in the shadows of your never-ending kindness.

While at work yesterday I had a HUGE scare. I was assigned to Engine 1 and we were responding to a MVA. As I was stepping out of the truck my left leg slipped off the step and went straight to the ground. Fortunately I was holding onto the hand rails, which kept me from falling head first to the ground. The down side was my right left leg stayed firmly planted in the cab of the truck. The remainder of my body and left leg went to the ground, which was nearly three foot below. The end result was a severe hyperflextion of my right knee. The pain was so severe I was nauseated.

Immediately I thought about my upcoming race and how unfortunate an injury would be. I had trouble bearing weight on the leg for the seconds after the incident. I moved the joint through its usual range of motion several times and mysteriously the pain completely dissolved. What a SCARE!

There has been a little tightness in my knee and evidence something happened, yet nothing serious. I planned to run three miles at work, but I decided the smart thing to do was to rest instead.

At noon today I did a little damage control on an eight mile run. I ran a six mile loop on the greenbelts. I felt the even terrain of the greenbelts was more beneficial than the trails. In the beginning there was an obvious change in my gait. I quickly addressed the issue. Before I finished the first mile I was on auto-pilot.

Since the six miles came relatively easy, I decided to finish the last two miles along the bayou rim. There is a total lack of shade on the bayou when running mid-day. By the end of those last two miles I was dripping of sweat. In fact, the sweat was so bad I killed my iPhone.

It has been a couple months since the city has mowed the bayou. Personally, I like running in the taller vegetation. The spring wild flowers are in abundance and absolutely beautiful right now. The pedestrian traffic along the bayou resembles a trail path more and move everyday… or least it will until they mow again.

The last time they mowed the blades shredded a shoe. Part of the debris was an eight-inch piece of black shoelace. EVERY-SINGLE-TIME I run the bayou I come across that damn shoelace and jump 20-feet in the air, because it looks just like a snake. I’m mentioning this because the theme of today’s post was “scarred” and I find it amusing how it scares the shit out of me every damn time, yet I have not stopped to pick it up.

I spent the remainder of the day in the Woodlands exchanging my phone. Thankfully they replaced my phone for free. Typically water damage is NOT covered. The staff was friendly and told me, “As long as you shot straight with us and don’t try to feed us a bunch of bull we are a lot more likely to work with you”. The Apple store was CRAZY with people everywhere and they said it was a "slow" day. It would be interesting to hear the stories people try to convince them to believe.

Run:
8.0 miles
1:30:18
11:17 pace

Walk:
1.5 miles
24:53
16:35 pace