29th April 2019
Summer season for the running club. Monday nights. I just dusted off my trainers. A 6k run never did anyone any harm.
Health is wealth
I am a seasonal runner. I don't do winter running. The cold gets into my bones. The club has to run on road, during winter. Heavy impact on the joints. Knees in particular.
I was discussing the Transbaie half marathon, c'est soir. Damn, that was tough. Putain de dur travail. Not exaggerating.
Last June I ran a half-marathon in St Valery, Normandy with the HH running club. Seven of us ran it. It was Putain de dur travail. It was a thirteen mile run through the mouth of the Somme. Mud. Basically estuary mud with mud banks so deep that many of the 1000's of runners literally face planted all the way. I did not intend another, even in mud.
I was so determined not to. I had face planted onto concrete in the November previous, after coming off my push-bike. I landed, cat like, on all fours but my left elbow gave way under the impact and I smashed up my left eyebrow and chin.
At the moment I regained my balance and awareness of what had just happened, I was almost certain that I might have lost my left eye. There was a lot of blood dripping down my mittens.
A car stopped and the driver got out, rushed over and then brought me a white towel from his car. I asked him: Do I still have my eye? Is it really bad? His face looked so shocked. He asked me a few questions to check that I was compos mentis and where I was heading to. I went straight to my neighbour/friend's house, as he was expecting me anyway to call in with some cash for the Christmas HH meal at my local - to be held in December.
When my friend opened the door, his face said it all. He was running around like a banshee looking for hydrogen peroxide and bandages. He advised that I should not go and look in the mirror. I eventually did so. It was like a horror movie. I was shocked.
A & E. I went straight to the reception and went into calm and cool mode. Internally, I was bawling my eyes out. I was screaming and crying inside. I saw a lovely nurse, she needed to know the exact details of the accident. She asked me twice. Once, when my then boyfriend/fiancee was in the room, and then again when he was not there.
She wanted to know (I think) if my story matched up and that I was not covering his ass for having beaten me or thrown my ass downstairs...or worse. I thought that this was very professional of her.
Many women who get beaten up by lovers, husbands, family members will not admit that they are being abused - even when they are desperate to tell someone. They do this because they do not want the abuse to get worse. They will cover the ass of their abuser.
The nurse was closely listening that I repeated what I had already told her. I still believe, to this day, that she was not entirely sure if I was covering the ass of an abusive man or not.
She washed my wounds out with a saline solution, it hurt like fuck. I swore loudly. Then she carefully put 5 emergency steri-strips to hold my eyebrow back together in place, assuring my that the scarring would be minimal, if at all. I was not sure if the hairs on my brow would grow back or not. My chin had a hole in it.
I have been left with a chin dimple, a little off centre. I had always wanted a chin dimple as a child. Sometimes, in class, I would push my pencil top into my chin to make a dimple. I already had cheek dimples. How greedy : )
My eyebrow scar is a fine line, not really visible unless pointed out. Scars remind us that we have lived. Scars are something to be proud of. They are a part of who we are.
The accident happened on a Thursday. I had an improvisation rehearsal to go to, that evening, and I made a decision to go.
I figured that I had two choices: 1) To sit at home and feel sorry for myself, and cry
2) To go along and laugh at myself, hoping that the group would too
I chose option 2
The bruises were so severe that I was able to compare myself to Johnny Depp. AKA Jack Sparrow. My arm was in a cast, in the case of possible fractured wrist. It was vivid green. Why I chose green? I still don't know...it seemed like the best option, green is a healing colour, and that it was the most unchosen colour by patients.
I attended the rehearsal with a beard of bruises, a steri-stripped eyebrow and a green plaster cast in a sling. I still believe that some of my luvvy-improv group assumed that I had made it up, and that it was a hoax. That I was in 'costume'. It was as if they did not know how to react. To laugh or feel sorry for me.
At the end of the workshop, JW, the director kudo'ed me for having had the courage to show up. I said, "Well, what could I do, stay at home and cry, or come out and laugh at myself?"
Always choose the laugh option. I do.
Bloody hell. I can go off at a tangent. Off topic.
I have read that the moment you are able to discuss a personally traumatic event with calm and composure, it is the moment that you are over it.
Transbaie half marathon across the mouth of the *Somme...did it, ran it, did not face plant. What got me through? My team, my good friend RS, my tenacity and thinking to myself how lucky I was to be running it freely and not with a heavy rucksack whilst being shot at by the enemies guns.
And then, right at the end , when I thought that my body could not push it anymore - on the home stretch to dry land - there were lots of St Valerians waving flags and shouting "Allez, allez". There was a cluster of Valerian ladies, at the last mud bank, who clocked me and I heard them shouting: "Allez, Madame", directly at me, since I was the only female runner at this point. It gave me encouragement. I came in, with RS at 3hrs 41mins. Our first team members, KD and EC, to get through - came in twelve minutes before us.
I won't discuss the rest of the trip or the journey back on the ferry. It was abysmal. I wanted to get straight home and not to have to hang about a day longer. The boat was full of football fanatics getting pissed up on beer. I could not cope with the beer-fuelled testosterone and football fanaticism. I had to get out on deck to find some ladies who were also finding it a struggle.
* The Battle of the Somme
The Allies bombarded German trenches for seven days and then sent 100,000 men over the top to attack the German lines.
The day was a disaster for the British. The Germans weathered the artillery fire in deep trenches and came up fighting. As the British soldiers advanced, they were mown down by machine gun and rifle fire. In total, 19,240 British soldiers lost their lives. It was the bloodiest day in the history of the British army. However, the French had more success and inflicted big losses on German troops. In spite of heavy British losses, Douglas Haig, the British general, agreed to continue the attack.
My mother lost some paternal relatives during this battle.
It was important to me to complete it. When she was dying, that summer, I showed her the footage of the end of the run on Youtube. She was impressed.
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