That time I took a face plant and other stories

Well, that was interesting.
Welcome to my very first second Disney race weekend (that’s a throw back to a Muppet cassette tape I had as a child: The very first second Muppet Show cast album)!  The 5K was great.  I won a medal with Pluto on it and was all very exciting.  A girl and her medal.
Unfortunately, Disney races notoriously are my worst pace times, because I stop and take selfies and get really excited at the faux Eiffel Tower and red British phone booths and the giant Epcot ball…thing.  That’s me.  Easily excited.  No records were shattered and I didn’t have any kind of, say, Chariots of Fire moment.  I did burst into song a few times but in all honesty, that’s nothing new.  That’s like, a day in the life.
This year I decided to do the 10K too because….okay, I’m not sure why.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  And when The Hubs, freezing in the starting corral with me (and when I say freezing, what I mean is that 50 degrees in Florida is vastly different than 50 degrees in Pennsylvania.  I swear, only the Canadians looked happy) asked why we were there at 5 in the morning, I had no legitimate response.
I like medals.  I also like winning.  I’m perfectly happy to accept a medal for the fact I did nothing but cross the finish line.
So, when I face planted in the first 1.5 miles of a 6.2 mile race, I was determined to crush that finish line.
I’d like to take a moment here to let you know that running a race is much like driving; that is, slow traffic to the right, fast traffic to the left.  I am by no means fast, but when people walking the race are stretched from one side of a two lane road to the other, I’m going to pass.  Because, at that point in time, I had a good pace.  It’s runner’s etiquette to let people pass on the left.  Runners on the left, walkers to the right.
Needless to say, I didn’t make it around the walker on the left.  My ankle rolled and I fell.  And I heard a snap.
Why do something half-ass when you can go All.  The.  Way.?  Because that’s what I did.  My ankle snapped, I scraped the skin off my right hand, I bruised my hip, my knee, and both elbows.
And I got up.  I walked five miles to the finish line.
On a broken ankle.
You know it’s going to be a bad day when the EMT who tends to you gets a look similar to how Muldoon looked in Jurassic Park when he realized that the raptors were hunting them.  *Removes hat.*  No.  We’re being hunted.  That’s how the EMT looked.  He said, “How does your ankle normally look?”
Funny you should ask, friend, because I have a perfectly intact one here!  On the other side!  Magic.
The other EMT was more composed.  She said, “What have you taken for pain?”
Um.  Nothing.
GASP.
It’s funny, because as I was walking the rest of the 10K (I’m proud to say The Hubs and I kept a pace of a 15 minute mile walking ON THE RIGHT) I even thought to myself, “Wow, the pain is going down.  I bet that means my adrenaline is going up up up.”  I just kept going.  I knew if I stopped, that would be it.  I wasn’t going to start again.  I wanted to finish–I wanted that damn medal–and nothing like an incredibly swollen, angry ankle was going to stop me.
If you want a Chariots of Fire moment, there it is.
So, now I’m on crutches.  I’ve decided that I’m going to watch and read Game of Thrones because…well, the only reason is because I dreamed about Kit Harrington and it seems appropriate.  Gonna get caught up on The Walking Dead.  Finish that novel that, you know, I was supposed to have done in December.  All the biggies.
I drowned my sorrows in butterbeer at Universal Studios.  I spent an obscene amount of money on wands for my kids.  I was just in a wheelchair most of the time, hopping from chair to ride and back again.  Hop along Curley.  I got pretty good at it!
Annnnnnd, now it’s back to the real world.  Back to working my day job.  Back to trying to drink more water and less rum.  I can’t work out for God knows how long, so I’ll be able to hunker down and finish up my novel.  And the other two I need to finish.
And, speaking of my novel?  Hold on to your butts (boy, these Jurassic Park references, I tell you what, it’s like I’m obsessed with the movie or something and just bought a JP hoodie) because in the next few days?
It’s cover reveal time.