I had started training for the 5K/10K Challenge in early February 2016 and I was so excited to be representing the back of the pack yet again as an Ambassador. I was consistent with my training, getting my long runs in, and following through with weekly cross-training. I was excited to reunite with my running family of fellow Ambassadors and share in our love of this sport. There was the Expo and the VIP dinner and, of course, there was race day. Lining up downtown, the spark and energy that surged through the crowd. I was on a roll, baby.
A couple weeks later, I’d start training for the Akron Half and I was ready to go. I had picked a new training plan, one that focused on speed and would hopefully get me to my PR. Unlike the 2015 Cleveland Half, I was really looking forward to training. I’d already written all my runs down in my planner, contacted the local high school about residents using the track during the summer, and started focusing on nutrition more.
Man on mangoberry, I WAS READY TO ROCK AND RUN.
And then a runner’s worst nightmare happened.
21
Forward Is Still a Pace
Let me set the scene for you: it’s Tuesday, May 10, 2016 at around 6:30 p.m. I get home from a pretty typical day at work and start putting dinner together: baked honey Sriracha chicken thighs with green beans. Ben and I have been living together for a month now. It’s a century home full of old wood and lots of character. Not the most up-to-date, but it’s gorgeous and it’s ours (at least for the next two years, per the terms of our lease).
Ben walks in the door just as I’m putting the chicken in the oven. With the Cleveland Marathon weekend just a few days away (meaning that the 5K and 10K Challenge are just a few days away), I’m being careful with my hydration and nutrition. It’s that tricky point of training where it’s super easy to give into the concept of carbo loading and instead go way overboard.
Ben heads upstairs and I pull the green beans out of the freezer. When I had first moved in, the freezer was full of frozen vegetables on the point of freezer burn, his roommates apparently not quite as concerned about their daily fruits and vegetable requirements as I am. When they have been over and seen the fridge they are rather impressed with how well stocked I keep it: not just with food, but healthy food.
That’s me, the Domestic Goddess.
I put the beans in a pot and head upstairs to take my work clothes off and get my yoga pants on. While upstairs, Ben asks me about the agenda for the weekend. Because of the 5K on Saturday, I have to get to the Expo on Friday night to get my packet and since my sister is coming in from out of town, I’m picking hers up as well. Then there is the VIP Reception for fancy folks, including the Ambassadors. Saturday morning is the 5K. My dad would be bringing my sister Amy into the city Saturday afternoon, then Sunday morning she and I would run the 10K, then immediately head to my parents’ house for a family party.
Busy and jam-packed doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Realizing the time, I head back downstairs knowing the chicken will be done soon and I still need to turn the stove on for the beans. The hardwood stairs that separate the first and second floor have small rectangular patches on each step that indicate there used to be small carpet squares that ran down the middle but they have been bare for years.
Right near the bottom of the staircase, my left foot slips on the slick hardwood. It happens so fast and I’m so caught off guard, I don’t have any time to react before I fall down, right on top of my left ankle.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I don’t move for a few seconds, waiting for my body to get grounded so I can assess the situation. I try to give a little twitch of my ankle. Then I burst into tears.
I’m not crying because it hurts—although it does, a lot—I’m crying because I know that because it hurts that means I probably won’t be able to walk on it, and if I can’t walk on it, then I definitely can’t run on it.
FUCK. (Is there any textual equivalent that denotes louder and angrier than all caps? Because that’s what I’m trying to convey here. Big, angry, Times Square billboard–sized FUCK.)
Hearing my cries of both pain and tears, Ben comes running down the stairs. I’m sitting on the ground floor, tucked next to the couch, my back against the bottom step. He sits a step above me and starts rubbing my shoulders. I am sobbing.
I’m talking full-on ugly crying. Mascara running, blotchy face, there may even have been snot involved. I lean away from my left leg, putting my weight on the right side of my body. I place my hands on the floor, bracing myself, and attempt to stand up.
Fuuuuuuckity fuck fuck fuck.
Unfortunately this isn’t foreign territory for me. I have a history of this sort of thing:
• Exhibit A: Falling off the jungle gym in grade school.
• Exhibit B: Tripping in the garage that one summer my dad and I were supposed to go to Mansfield.
• Exhibit C: Falling while unsuccessfully attempting to fulfill a lifelong dream to be a roller derby girl.
• Exhibit D: THE TREADMILL.
This, though, could not have come at a worse time. I mean, seriously. Tuesday night this has to happen? TUESDAY NIGHT before a SATURDAY AND SUNDAY RACE.
Flames. Flames on the side of my face.
The oven starts beeping and I ask Ben if he can take the chicken out. He is hesitant to leave me, but I insist. He takes the chicken out and then asks what to do about the green beans on the stove. From my spot on the floor I give instructions as he finishes dinner. With his help, I get up and hobble over to the table and eat my chicken with a side of green beans and salty, salty tears.
As he starts cleaning up, he asks what kind of ice cream I want from a local ice cream shop. I think he’s kidding, but he’s not. When he leaves to get some scoops, I also ask if he’d be willing to pick up some support stuff for my ankle from a pharmacy.
Because this isn’t my first time at the ankle rodeo, I know the drill: RICE. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation.
I settle on the couch and prop my foot up on a stack of pillows. Finally, I’m able to put those bags of frozen veggies leftover from the roommates to good use and get comfy with some frozen corn in a towel. For compression, all I have to use is KT tape, but it gets the job done.
Ben returns with ice cream, an ankle compression sleeve, and an air cast.
BEST. BOYFRIEND. EVER.
My sister is now first on my list of people to call because this Sunday wasn’t just my 10K, it was her very first 10K. We were supposed to be running it together and now it looks like she’ll be running it alone. I feel awful because this was a big deal for us and we aren’t going to be able to partake in it like we planned.
She, of course, completely understands and tells me to take it easy and just rest.
So that is what I did for the next couple days, eventually returning to work near the end of the week. By then I could put some weight on the ankle and was able to walk, albeit with a slight limp. My air cast was pretty noticeable and coworkers kept asking about the ankle, but it was never so bad that I had to resort to the elevator, and I kept taking the stairs as usual.
My running friends told me not to count anything out. I knew the 10K was probably a greater risk, so those 6.2 miles wouldn’t be happening, but the 5K was a maybe, even if I just walked it. At the same time, though, I was supposed to start training for Akron in a couple of weeks. Akron was the race I had my eye on—I wanted that PR and it seemed safer, and smarter, to skip both the 5K and 10K and give my ankle time to heal. Therefore, I left work a little early on Friday and headed downtown to the Convention Center for the Expo. I wasn’t planning on running, but I still needed to pick up my sister’s race packet.
I learned that race weekend as an injured runner is a very different experience. Normally I’d take my time at the expo, but this was very much a get in and get out situation, and I was so grateful to find a parking spot near the entrance. (Although I didn’t find a space at first. Some jackass in an S
UV squeezed into a spot just as I was backing into it. If not for that whole ankle bullshit I would have gotten out of my car and HELL HATH NO FURY on his ass. It took another loop, crying while driving, before I found a spot that actually ended up being right in front of the main door.)
Saturday morning, instead of running the 5K, I spent the rainy day sleeping in and reading. My dad brought my sister in the afternoon and we hung out at the house, getting tacos for dinner.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Cleveland weather this time of year can be very unpredictable. So unpredictable that nobody, and I mean nobody, was anticipating snow in mid-May, but in the days and hours leading up to race weekend that was all anyone was talking about. On the one hand, I was so happy I didn’t have to run in that shit. On the other hand, all I wanted to fucking do was run and this was probably the only time I ever would be sad about not running in snow and hail and rain and just really horrible weather.
For the second year in a row, Ben offered to play chauffeur for race day (read: Best. Boyfriend. Ever.), waking up far earlier than he needed to on his day off. Originally I was going to wait at the start line with Amy and meet her at the finish line, but the weather was so bad and I was worried about all the walking on my ankle that I asked if she minded if he dropped me off somewhere that would let me see her on the course.
She didn’t, but I felt horrible. Not only was I not running the race with her, I was ditching her at the start line. As Ben pulled away and started to head for a spot where he could drop me off, I started crying again.
(No joke, he managed to see me cry more in the span of a week than he had in the entire previous two years we had been together.)
It turns out, along with the pre-race VIP Reception, there was also a post-race VIP Brunch. I’d been invited in 2015, but because of the time frame and because of my pace, I had to miss it and I hadn’t planned on going this year, either, because of a family party.
But then, see, my ankle happened and I was going to need somewhere to kill time while Amy was running and I always say my three favorite words are All Day Breakfast …
Ben dropped me off as close to Public Square as he could get. Once the race started, they’d turn a couple of corners and run right past me. With any luck I’d be able to spot my sister in the mass of people. Of course, because we got there so early, I still had time to kill and it was wet and cold so it’s possible I went to the nearby casino and lost $20, but whatever.
Moving more slowly than usual, I had to give myself plenty of time to get to wherever I needed to go, so when it was getting closer to the start of the race, I made my way from the casino back to Public Square and found a corner. I didn’t see Amy, but I did see some of my other racing friends. As I stood there, clapping and cheering, I realized I had never been a spectator at a race before. Wanting to ensure that my fellow runners in the back of the pack were recognized, I stayed on that corner until the police escort drove by.
The hotel where the brunch was being held was a block away so I slowly, very, very slowly, started to walk in that direction. My slow pace had little to do with my ankle and everything to do with the sidewalk being slick. That, combined with my ankle, was a recipe for a disaster.
Because Amy is a faster runner than I am, I had an inkling of how long it would take her to finish. And since I was moving slowly and I needed to give myself ample time to get where I needed to go, I didn’t take a long, leisurely brunch. I took the escalator up to the second floor of the Marriott, checked in, and got my plate of fruit, eggs, and bacon. At this point the ballroom was still pretty empty, and most of the other attendees were family members of runners who were waiting until their person was done.
After finishing my brunch, I headed over to the finish line and found a spot along the fence to wait. My sister, like me, has a unique fashion sense when it comes to running and had chosen a bright patterned pair of running tights to wear, so I knew what to look for and spotted Amy soon after she exited the Shoreway ramp. Thanks to my bright green Slytherin hoodie (Harry Potter fan for life, yo), she located me at the same time and we waved.
I had my camera waiting and started snapping pictures as she passed by, finishing her first 10K in a little over an hour.
Right near the end there, the hail started to fall in full force and as we found each other and hugged I realized that if I had been able to run today, that’s the kind of shitty weather I’d be running in. Cold, solid, drops of water pelting down, stinging me in the face.
Hmm. Maybe this ankle issue wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
Here’s the thing. Because I’m quite familiar with sprained ankles, I know what they feel like. I also know what they are supposed to look like and this? This looked horrible. My entire left foot was bruised, both above and below the anklebone and the whole top of the foot, directly below the toes. I could walk, yes. There was a limp and I was slow, but I could walk, and as the week went on I could put more pressure on it, but still, it looked really, really bad.
So the following Monday night, Ben comes home from work and I’m in the kitchen trying to figure out dinner. Five minutes after he walks in the door he mentions that he’d been talking to a coworker about me and she told him that her sister had fallen and had what she thought was a sprained ankle, but later learned it was broken.
Oh, great. That’s just want I wanted to hear.
I burst into tears. “Why would you tell me that?”
His face falls, realizing he’s just said pretty much the worst possible thing he could have said. “I thought it would help!”
“How is that helping?”
At this point, dinner has been completely forgotten and I’m about five seconds away from getting in the car and driving myself to the hospital for X-rays. Knowing I can be a wee bit impulsive, Ben is patiently trying to talk it through with me. I’m on the couch, ankle propped up, sobbing, and we decide that just for my own sake of sanity we should go.
We live just a few blocks from the Lakewood Hospital. Once a thriving, full-scale facility, due to some local drama, it currently only operates as an Emergency Room while the Cleveland Clinic makes some changes and upgrades to the campus.
Ben dropped me off at the door and I hobbled in while he parked the car. The waiting room was quiet, almost empty, and we only had to wait for maybe ten or fifteen minutes before I was called back.
The nurse went through the list of patient intake questions, including asking my pain level on a scale of ten. I said a one or a two. It was more uncomfortable and annoying than anything else. They asked what brought me in and I said I had fallen the week before and it felt sprained, but looked really bad so I wanted to check just to be sure.
Those were my exact words: “Just to be sure.” That said, even with all of my panic half an hour ago, I was feeling pretty confident I’d pay a couple hundred dollars in a co-pay and be sent back with my sprained ankle and maybe a prescription for painkillers. I mean, hello, I’d been walking on the damn thing all week. Even the doctor, when we met, asked if he saw me walking back here on my own. How bad could it be?
Yeah. About that.
In typical emergency room fashion, we were there for about three hours and had maybe twenty minutes of face time with the doctor. But, since we’re both librarians, we each came prepared with big books.
About half an hour after I had my X-rays taken, Doctor Andy walked back in.
“So, it’s broken. Looking at probably six to eight weeks.”
He said this so matter-of-factly that it took my brain a second to process the information. And when it did I, once again, burst into tears.
(The fact that this is all happening about two days before my period no doubt affected the bottomless well of emotions now pouring out through my eyeballs. I’m like fucking Alice in Wonderland over here, drowning in a pool of my own tears.)
Doctor Andy nodded sympathetically. “Did you have something planned?”
“I … am … a … runner,” I managed
to get out between sobs. “I’m supposed to start training for the Akron Half soon.”
His blue eyes widened and his face fell. “Oh, I am so, so sorry,” he said, voice soft. “I’m a runner, too. I honestly didn’t think it would end up being broken and I was pulling for you. Had I known you were a runner, I would have really been pulling for you.”
That runner camaraderie, man. It knows no bounds.
He left for a few minutes and the nurse returned. Seeing my tear-streaked face, she asked if it was because of the pain or because of the situation. (This was the first of many times that people were skeptical when I told them it didn’t hurt. Again: I had walked on it for a week.)
I said the situation.
She nodded, “Andy talked to you then?”
Yes. Yes he did.
Lakewood Hospital currently didn’t have an orthopedic department so all they could do was put me in a splint and send me home with a list of local bone docs to call in the morning, which was Tuesday.
They also sent me home with a prescription for codeine, which, granted, I didn’t really need, but I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
By the time we got home it was about 10:30 p.m. and there was no way in hell I was going to make it into work the next day. Ben assured me this was a situation that was an exception to the “Don’t call your manager late at night” rule.
Because Ben works late on Wednesdays, we had hoped to get an appointment that morning so he could take me, but the bone doctor prefers patients visit within 24 hours of their ER visit. I think they probably mean “within 24 hours of the break,” in which case I could probably have argued against that, but decided to go along with it. Ben had already left for work so I called my dad, who works downtown Cleveland and has the kind of grown-up executive C-suite–level job that allows for flexibility when your daughter breaks her ankle and needs a ride.
Like Doctor Andy, the bone doctor was rather impressed I’d walked on it for a whole week. Not only that, but that my week of weight-bearing and very little support didn’t do any further damage. Because of this, bone doc, a.k.a. Doctor Strimbu, wanted to see what would happen if he gave the ankle full support and no weight-bearing. This meant a full-on cast with a lovely set of crutches to go with it.
Running with a Police Escort Page 24