Yup, I'm Hurt Again

Over the past few weeks, I’ve slowly been climbing out of the alcohol drenched sleepwalk I’ve been doing for months (years possibly) and started to try and get myself back in shape. I’ve started lifting in the mornings and then running after work. I won’t be running any 5 minute miles anytime soon, but I am slowing reminding myself that at one point in my life I was an athlete.

And what I also forgot was that I have an incredible propensity for getting hurt. I didn’t set the school record for time spent in the trainer’s room (And in only 3 years none the less. Imagine if I had been cleared for my senior season?) for nothing. So while it came as a surprise to me, it should not be surprising to you, was that I sprained my ankle on Friday night. I was out for a run and had the brilliant idea of running on a street I’ve never been down. I should have realized this was a bad idea when I thought, “Hmm…there aren’t many street lights here.” But that was quickly disregarded when I heard dogs barking. I think my greatest fear during my track career was not the pain you go through during a race, not losing to Sy fucking osset, but getting attacked by a dog or bear when we used to go on trips to the middle of nowhere. Ask K-Dog, we were in upstate NY and I had no problem running 10 miles a day, banging out hundreds of pushups, or anything else they required. But run anywhere near a place that had a dog, or possibly a bear. Nope coach. You sir, can go fuck yourself. I’ll run quarter mile repeats right here if you don’t mind. The only reassuring thing I had was that I was in better shape than pretty much everyone else in my group, so I only had to outrun them.

Anyway, after that story went absolutely nowhere, I’m on this dark ass road, and what happens next? That’s right, some ass hat decided it would be a good idea to not fill in the pothole after he did some work on his driveway. So bam, there goes my ankle into it. It all came rushing back to me. The “Oh fuck”, followed by the “Ok, calm down, its not that bad, just walk it off.” Then comes the realization, “Yeah, that’s not going to heal overnight.” And finally, acceptance. This was all well and good, but since I normally did this on a basketball court, I had to accept that I was a mile and a half from my house and still needed to get home. So I hobbled home in which was 25 of the best minutes of my life. And by that time, my foot looked like that of a 500 pound person. But on the plus side, if there is one thing I know how to do in this world (besides working with a vicious hangover), it’s how to treat a sprained ankle, and took solace in the fact that at least this time, it was only 1 sprained ankle and not two. Because that was a bitch. So my experiment with being an athlete landed me where it always does, with a lot of ice on my body.