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On the way to the city park from the French Quarter I discovered this grave yard.

A recent trip to New Orleans allowed me to participate in my favourite pastime of exploring new surroundings through running. When playing tourist, I loathe the preplanned, prepackage tours that are offered by the tourism industry. By running around a new location I’m visiting, I get the opportunity to explore in ways not possible while in tow by a tour guide. A great example of this was my sighting of a possum in the city park while on a run. Never have I seen such an odd, ugly yet fascinating creature up close and very impromptu.

Perhaps a little embarrassing is the running accident that was also a part of the trip. Imagine the smirks I get when I explain that the recent breaking of two fingers was the result of running. Who would have known that running would be a full contact sport?

The incident basically involved running late in the day, the sun setting so that I lost daylight and my ability to see clearly. Faced with running back to my hotel on sidewalks that still struggle with the devastation of hurricane Katrina as well as issues with basic poverty of some New Orleans neighbourhoods, I foolishly choose to keep running. I should confess that I’ve been in this situation several times in Vancouver as well, several resulted in falling accidents as well. The New Orleans incident being exceptional due to the injury that resulted.

At the end of the run, stumbling along as usual due to fatigue, my left foot managed to find a crack in the sidewalk that caused me to stumble. In an effort to break my fall I reached out with my right hand resulting in two fingers taking the bulk of my landing. The initial shock of the pain that resulted was surprisingly not bad. What soon followed was moaning, stars and shooting pain up my arm. My shoulder did most of the complaining at first as it was also a point of my landing. Getting up in the darkness from the protective custody of someones decorative bush, it became clear that something was wrong with my hand. Holding it vertically with my hand in front of me seemed to help but the throbbing was intense. More concern at the time was the bleeding coming out various scratches over my hand, arm and knees.

A few hours after my fall, the swelling of the two broken fingers has become clear along with the beautiful purple hue that has set in.

Based on recent past experiences of being stung on the inside of my mouth multiple times while running (details to follow in another post) I learned that resuming my run is an effective way to cope with pain. I often read about distance runners tolerance for pain but on a personal level I couldn’t relate other than a few extreme cases. I’m realizing now that many of my longer runs do involve a certain amount of discomfort that I’ve not associated with pain until now with some reflection. Odd how so much pleasure can come out of pain and pushing past it at a mental level. Perhaps I’m more masochistic than I realized?

Due to being in the United States and fearing the medical costs of visiting a local emergency room, I failed to see a doctor about my injured hand. Returning to Canada a week later result in further procrastination as the level of pain was quickly subsiding. The end result, four months later, is continued tenderness, a significant loss of range of motion (about 50%) and one finger that clearly zigs when it should be zagging.

Why I didn’t go to see a doctor is clearly an example of procrastination and complacency, perhaps even a little embarrassment. I suspect I’ll pay for my silliness when I’m an old man and arthritis sets in. Until then, I’ll just have to continue my work on tolerance for pain lake any self respecting distance runner.