Yesterday was Wednesday and that means running with my colleagues. My legs felt great even after the Sunday marathon and I had a lot of surplus energy. So while the others ran on the pavement I took every chance I could get to run on every bumpy surface I could find, around trees, over boulders and through leaves and alike. What a great run that was! The group pace had been a little slower than I liked so when a colleague said lets speed up the last 500 meters I accelerated and kept running faster and faster on the pavement getting closer and closer to our finish. The pavement was dark and badly lit but I didn't think anything of it I only thought of getting to the finish as fast as possible. My guess is that I was running at about 20 km/t when a tilted tile surprised me ... big time!
Seconds earlier I had had my eyes focused on the finish like a cheetah hunting its prey but suddenly my focus shifted to the pavement wanting to make out with me. I managed to take 2 or 3 steps before finally diving into a somersault. Right away I knew what had happened. Placing my right hand on the pavement I had felt a strong energy wave moving up my arm and into the elbow joint. Shit .. Shit shit shit. I got up and ran the last 100 meters. The group asked me what had happened but I was thinking more of getting a bleeding injury in my hand cleansed and tested my arm for broken bones. The cleansing part was quick and painful using alcohol from a bathroom dispenser. Then checking my arm .. hand and fingers were ok but when I tried to push the wall I felt a sharp pain just below my elbow. Shit! I have broken several bones in my lifetime so I knew what that meant. Something in my right arm had broken.
A few minutes later my arm started immobilizing and by then all doubt left me. I headed for the local hospital :/
The Copenhagen emergency rooms have a rumor for letting you wait for hours and hours but within 5 minutes I was being looked on by a nurse and 5 minutes after that I was heading for the x-ray room. All in all it took about 20 minutes before a doctor gave me my verdict. I had a fractured elbow joint. My first question was "Can I run with that in 10 days?". The doctor looked at me surprised and said "No!". That was not the answer I was hoping for. I told him about my 21 days 3 marathons plan and that I had already run 2 of them and was only missing the last one in about 10 days.. He left the room gave it some thought returned and said "in 10 days you can run your marathon!" The nurse stared at him and objected but the doctor said stuff like "he is obviously in great shape" which I confirmed eagerly ;)
I was given a set of instructions: "keep your arm in fixed angle of 90 degrees" "If you fall you have only one option .. go left" "keep your arm close to your body and keep it still" ...
When I later informed my wife it went something like this "Hi dear, I've broken my elbow but the doctor said I can still run my marathon in 10 days!" .. Needless to say she wasn't as cheerful about THAT fact as I was ;)
Will I run? I don't know. The arm still hurts and is swollen. I'll test a short run next week before making the final decision. If it doesn't hurt I'll run. If not ... hmm
Never focus so much on the goal that you loose your sense of the road.
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