Stitches

A few days ago I was thinking how long it had been since I'd tripped and fallen while trail running.  Three years?  Four?  My luck ran out yesterday.  I was flying (for me) down Ray Miller with my music probably too loud, feeling great, when all of a sudden I caught a toe and went airborne for what seemed like 30 seconds of slow motion as my brain registered the inevitable.  Crap, this is gonna hurt!  The left knee took the brunt of the impact, with a chunk of soft tissue left on the trail, but my right elbow and hands were both a bit scraped.  No biggie there; however, the knee kinda bled a lot (don't worry:  no photos), and the wound was very irregular and jagged.  The weird thing was that it really didn't hurt at all.  ???

My next-door neighbor is a nurse, so I had her look at it when we got home.  "Uh, this needs to be really cleaned out, and you're gonna need stitches."   Crap again.

After finding an urgent care clinic that my insurance would cover, I was seen by a very nice older doctor who had been a medic in Vietnam many years ago.  Cool.  He numbed it up, scrubbed it out, and then proceeded with the stitches.  After a few minutes I asked him HOW MANY STITCHES ARE YOU PUTTING IN ANYWAY?!  He replied that he'd lost count.  I think there were about 20.  After that came injections of an antibiotic (in the butt - haha) and a tetanus shot.  Good grief.

So I am a bit gimpy and taking it easy today.  I have a big run planned for Saturday and hope to still be able to do it.  Of course, I won't tell the doctor.   A funny juxtaposition:  Ten years ago tomorrow (2/02/02!) I ran my 100-mile PR at Rocky Racoon (16:51).  Still not sure how I pulled that one off running only ~30 miles/week!  Oh to be 10 years younger...