Tumbling Down

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Getting to the start was nearly impossible. My initial plan was to meet a bunch at Van Cortland Park and get our miles in there, but everyone bailed on me, well except for Salt Lick, but by the time she called I was bound for Williamsburg. From there, the Empress Norma was going to take my bag to the hash start, so I could get some miles in before running the trail and have dry clothes at the finish. Unfortunately, someone decided to split the G into several parts, so by the time I met up with her I was 25 minutes later than I wanted to be. Then she pointed me in the wrong direction. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

From there though it was a nice run,past the Billyburg Jews and their awful plastic sukkases, over the Williamsburg Bridge, and uptown via the L.E.S., Park and Lex, finally reaching the start of the trail a full 15 minutes after the pack had headed off. Heading into the park, I felt a bit tired, but by the time I caught up to Mean Jean and Lauren I was good. 10 minutes later I reached the front of the pack lost on the west side and once the trail was found, charged up a hill into the park having the time of my life. I love the shiggy, and in the last miles of the last long run of marathon training, I felt great.

And then I fell. I rolled my ankle on a similar charge downhill (stupid!), screaming as I hit the earth. I’m not sure exactly what happened, whether it popped, how exactly I did it, any of that. In the time it took me to sprawl to the ground I registered a pretty good amount of pain, I started freaking out about the marathon, and let out a howl. My ankle blew up to the size of my knee. The first time I tried to get up I went down again. I think I might have cried for about a second from the pain. Not good.

A lot of my fellow hashers stopped to help me out and I made it out of the park soon enough. They were great, I can’t say enough about that. From there I went to the on-in where once I warmed up, the pain got so bad I thought I might throw up. I don’t remember ever feeling like that. Fortunately, a vicodin/advil cocktail helped out a bit.

Anyway, it’s the next morning now and the swelling has nearly gone away, but I’ve developed an entirely special kind of morning stiffness that I get the feeling is not going to be easy to resolve. I’m in a considerable amount of pain, but I slept through the night and I expect my ankle to loosen up soon enough. Ok, I hope it will. One way or the other I may have to head off to Methodist for a look see, I think I’m gonna need more drugs if nothing else.

The Marathon starts in exactly 13 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes. Fuck me.