Happy Weekend, Readers!
I hope your holiday weekend has been filled with fun, family/friends, and food. I on the other hand have just been bumming in my house making recipe cards and doing laundry, but hey, we all celebrate in our own ways.
This past Thursday was Thanksgiving as all of you remember. It was also the day I had been waiting for all year, the 48th Annual Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot! After seeing all of the pictures of my friends and family doing this over the years I decided last Thanksgiving that this was going to be my goal for 2015. Let me remind you how much of a runner I am not before I tell you my most embarrassing public moment of the year.
In January I decided to join a Planet Fitness location since it was cheap and close to my house. I figured if I was the one paying for it then I would be more apt to go. I also determined that since I had 11 months to train, by the time Thanksgiving rolled around then I would be in tip-top shape to run those 3.1 miles.
My first day at PF was a rainy, cold Monday night. Since everyone is still into the “New Years Resolution” phase of their work outs, it could not have been busier. I find the only open treadmill in the entire building. Since I had never been there before (I enrolled online) I didn’t know where the locker rooms were or if I had to bring my own lock, etc. so I just placed my stuff next to me. The base of my treadmill was rather large so I put my huge purse on it so it would be out of people’s way, but still near me.
I had downloaded the Couch to 5k app earlier that day so I turned it on and started walking. If you’ve never used the app it basically tells you when to run and when to walk for about 30 minutes. Every week it increases the amount of time you run and decreases the amount of time you walk. You start with a five minute warm up walk and then it has you run. I think for the first day it’s something like 30 seconds of running (but don’t quote me on that).
I am 10 minutes into my first day and as I start running for the second time, unbeknownst to me, my large purse falls onto the track. I have not figured out about pacing yet so I am running 6.5 miles an hour and proceed to trip over the purse. Time basically starts to go in slow motion as my life flashes before my eyes. I manage to grab onto the bars of the treadmill and kinda catch myself with one leg, but with a track going 6.5 miles an hour, I clearly can’t stay that way for long and my leg falls out from under me. I am now being dragged by the machine and I have to make the decision to let go. I am THROWN into the treadmill behind me in this super crowded gym and I crumple to the ground. Immediately, I am hit with an incredible amount of pain in my right leg. I have several piercings and three tattoos; I’ve broken my left wrist and my tailbone before. Given this information, I was pretty sure I had broken my leg.
I slowly look up while I am still on the ground to see if anyone wants to help me. No one is making eye contact. Finally the girl who was on the machine next to me looks back and in a disgusted, annoyed high pitched voice asks if I am ok. “Yeah…. I’m fine,” I meagerly eek out. “Well I know first aid,” she replies then turns back to walking on her machine. No other offer of help is given, God forbid she stop her work out. I manage to collect myself and stand up. I determine that my leg is not broken, however it has definitely sustained some sort of damage. I get the rest of my belongings, which are now scattered all over the place from my fall. My jacket is wrapped up on one of the poles, my purse is laying sideways behind me. I hobble myself out of there as fast as my mangled leg will let me and just cry in my car. Fortunately, I don’t live that far away and am able to make it home fairly quickly.
After that incident I didn’t go to the gym again for a few months. I never went to the doctor since I try to avoid them as much as possible, but I sustained some nerve damage in my calf and now have two lovely large scars from the belt of the treadmill dragging against my legs. It is much better now, almost a year later, but once in awhile that knee will hurt for a bit. I have yet to try to get that footage from Planet Fitness, but I will reach out to see if I can’t get that clip to submit to something like #GymFails.
All of that to say, my running career took a bit of a break for awhile and then in September I realized that November was coming faster than I had anticipated. I was only on week 4 (of 8) when the Turkey Trot came, but I was determined to do as well as I could. My best friend, Becky, was also doing C25K and we had signed up together this past summer. My mom and sister also signed up and I realized later that actually a lot of people I knew had joined as well. Unfortunately, this is more like a “fun walk/run” than I had realized. People walk this race wearing corduroys and holding their Starbucks. It just became too much to try to pass all of the walkers after awhile (I heard there were 25,000 people there) so Becky and I just decided to walk the last part. We still managed to get quite a bit of exercise on a day that is solely dedicated to food, which to me is a major win.
There is also an 8 mile run course for the Turkey Trot that, as you can guess, is much less crowded. That has made it to our running goals list as well as doing a smaller, more race-centric 5k in the coming months. That means I will still have some attainable fitness goals to be working towards instead of just mindlessly running for no reason. I have heard many times that you are more likely to reach a goal if you write it down.
Even though I didn’t full out run the Turkey Trot then way I had imagined, I still set a goal and accomplished it. I finished the race, I put work into making the goal attainable in the months before the race, and I did it with people that I love. What could be better than that ? 🙂
Happy Reading!
-Savvy