The bad, the worse, and the ugly

Spent today with my nephews. They are sweet and adorable and it makes the tragedy of Newtown all the more unbearable to know that so many sweet and adorable were taken. As I drove back to Boston, I turned on NPR, only to catch the memorial service. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t brought to tears in the car. It makes all of this seem so tiny and unimportant.

The worse
The Lake Sunapee Turkey Trot 5K was Thanksgiving morning. Drove up to NH Wednesday night, played skeeball with my 94 year old grandmother, and had quite a bit to drink. Woke up Thursday morning a bit dehydrated to quite cold temperatures. Bru, Kerry and I headed over to Sunapee, picked up our numbers, and waited in the car (hooray HEAT!) until 10 minutes before the start. The course profile is everything but flat. Within the first mile, there is a lung busting climb of 200-240 feet over ~.5 miles. The cold air burned my airway and the dehydration caused my ears to start popping. By the 3rd mile, I was reading to go home: I was tasting the blood of a too-extreme effort in my mouth. And I gave up. It would end up being my slowest 5K in years (perhaps ever?) at 20:22. Not a great day, but a good lesson. Respect the body, respect the race course.
The bad
The Yulefest 5K was far better weather than the previous year. My training had been going a lot better than last year, and things seemed to be going my way. Lost track of time the morning of the race and ended up stressing out about whether I would make it to the race on time. But I ended up being there with plenty of time, eating breakfast, meeting teammates and goofing off before the start. However, I was (again) a bit dehydrated, and like Sunapee, I didn’t have my Garmin with me. Was chasing after the ginger minion from the get go, but I don’t have the top end speed that he does. Once we hit the slight hills on the way back in, I knew I was out of it. My ears started popping and I stopped to get my body under control twice. As it was, I shouldn’t have as I was only 3 seconds off of my PR. Lesson kind of learned — don’t stop unless the #pOOPS are imminent.
The ugly

That’s the #mangledankle 72+ hours after I… I don’t know exactly what happened. I was playing soccer, went to turn, and was on the ground after hearing two pops. I figured it was just a sprain, but 72 hours of hideous bruising worries me that it is something worse. M’er-f’er. Stupid injury. I know why I was playing, but it seems so stupid.
I sat on the sidelines as RaceMenu teammates PRed all over the place at Miss Santa. There’s no doubt in my mind I would have too (and then this would have been The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). But instead, I just hobbled around and watched them.
No diagnosis yet, but going to the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully it’s only a terrible sprain and I’m not running for a month; I’m prepared for much worse.
Just say hello to the ground