Hard Fall

I took my first spill on the concrete while out for a run.  I've fallen twice in the past while out running, but it's always been on the trail.  Yesterday was my first experience of what it feels like falling on the concrete.  It hurts, so I wouldn't try it if I were you. 

Let me start at the beginning. 

Sunday was the perfect morning for a run.  Sunny, cool temps, light breeze, perfect!  I laced up my shoes and headed out the door.  At the last minute, I decided to slip on a sweatband on my wrist/under my Garmin. I've never used a sweat band under my Garmin so I have no idea what made me decide to do so.  Anyway, I hit the road at an easy pace.  I decided to not pay attention to my pace, just use my Garmin so I know how far I am going/have gone.  I was about half a mile from home when it happened.  I tripped over someones hose that was laying across the sidewalk and fell to the concrete.  As I was coming down, I tried hard to avoid a fairly large rock the home owner had placed at the corner of their lawn where the driveway, lawn and sidewalk meet.  I came down on my left side on the rock, managing to clip my left knee on it and take the brunt of the fall on my right knee on the sidewalk.  I sat up, looked around, looked down and my knees and noticed the blood.  I quickly took off my Garmin and held the sweatband against the open wound.  I stood up and began to hobble home.  I was across the street from the high school and noticed a fee cars parked at the football field/weight room/locker room.  I started across the street when I spotted a friend or ours, Sam.  He's one of the high school football coaches.  I shouted his name and hobbled as fast as I could over to him.  I asked if he had any bandages and showed him my knees.  He opened the bed of his truck and had me is there while he went looking for something to tape me up with.  Unfortunately he did not have a first aide kit.  He had a few band aides and football tape though!  So he put a band aide on the cut and placed football tape over it.  He said I should be ok to run, so I made the decision to head back out.  I ended up running 2.5 miles in 24-ish minutes.  The tape was coming off so I had to go home.  I stopped home, showed Chris what had happened, cleaned up my cuts and headed back out for another 2.1 miles.  After my run, I immediately began icing my right knee.  At this point, it's now severely swollen.  I applied a bandage to the cut, covered it with an ace bandage and went to the gym to lift weights.  I was not going to let it ruin my work out plans for the day.  :-)

I made sure to ice my right knee off and on all day.  As for my cut left knee, Chris cleaned the wound with peroxide and antibiotic ointment to it after we returned for our work out.  I let it stay under covered until bed.  I applied more ointment and covered it with a band aide.

I woke up this morning feel much better than I had anticipated.  My right knee is still swollen, bruised and a little stiff.  The cut on my left knee looks like it has improved as well.   I plan to go for an easy run tonight after work to test out my knees.  I think I may be fine just as long as I keep it to an easy pace.  I want to be able to stay with my goal of running everyday for the month of June.  I will be so disappointed if I I have to take a couple days off.  Wish me luck!

Here are a couple pictures of my knees.  The cut doesn't look all that bad in the photos.

My Right knee:

My left knee: