I smashed my face

Wednesday turned into a zero day for me. As predicted, I was too lazy for the 4am alarm, so a morning workout was a no-go. I was able to take my usual 30 minute walk on my lunch break, but that's not a workout by any stretch of the imagination. I was out of work at 6pm and then on-call at the ambulance at 7pm; I got the call that I needed to be in by then. Usually, there's time for a quick 3 mile run in between the two jobs, but since I wasn't running yesterday, I did nothing but pick up some food on my way from one place to the other. Can't run? Eat. I ended up on shift until 2am and just decided to stay the rest of the night there, but got up just before 6am so I could head home and go for a road run.
Most of the well-traveled roads were dry, but not Bald Hill, Chase Hill and Tasker Hill. Sheets of ice. I brought along my dull pair of microspikes to wear as needed, but I found them to be pretty useless in those conditions, so I took them off. I actually felt really good this morning and decided to add in a little extra instead of just finishing off the loop, so I headed up the main part of Tasker Hill Rd, with plans to turn around at the base of  Tasker Hill where it splits off uphill on a dirt road. I know how icy that road is, so I didn't want to chance it. Well, I tend to change my mind a lot mid-run, and... when I got to the split, I felt I hadn't done enough climbing, so off I went on the icy portion of Tasker Hill Rd. It was really well sanded on the sides, and I had no problems at all. I got to the top of the hill where the view is amazing, slowed down and began to turn around, when the next thing I know my face is smacking the pavement. My first thought was MY TEETH. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and felt around. Intact. Phew. And then I saw the blood all over my gloves. I'm sure I uttered, "Oh f*ck, " a few times.I could taste the blood all in mouth and feel that my lower lip was huge. I tried to wipe some of the blood away with my glove and then started walking down the hill for about 15 seconds. I had no idea why I needed to walk, so I started running again. I was laughing out loud at this point and stopped just in front of SOLO Wilderness Medicine School's driveway, grabbed some snow to try to wash my face off, but I ended up with more sand in my mouth than I already had. I pulled out my phone to use the camera as a mirror. Upon seeing the damage, the song "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story immediately popped in my head. I had to snap this lovely selfie.

Then I thought about going into SOLO since there's a Wilderness EMT class going on. I'm friends with the instructors, so I would have just walked right into the classroom and had a little impromptu first aid training for the class. But I really didn't have time and I didn't need any aid, so I decided not to. I was about 3 miles from home, so there was nothing left to do but just finish my run. So on I went (with some pretty good splits in there, I might add), covering up my face with my neck gaiter any time a car passed. I was spitting sand out of my mouth the entire way. Big chunks of it, too. It was awesome. Once home, I cleaned up the face. My nose was twice its normal size and the lower lip was a collagen-injection gone wrong. I noticed something stuck in between my two front teeth, so I pulled out the floss and flossed out... yep, more sand. Too funny. Here's a picture of me right after I cleaned up trying to look like everything was cool.

The swelling has gone down considerably since then, but I still look awful. The nose is starting to bruise, but it really hasn't been that painful. The inside of the mouth bled for 3 hours and still hurts when I eat or drink, but it will heal. I'm lucky I didn't smash any other part of my head when I fell or lose my teeth. I love my teeth and would have been pissed if I'd knocked them out, although dentures are way better than they used to be. I'm kicking myself for going up that road. I knew better, but I just needed a little bit more climbing. Any run under 1000 ft of elevation gain just doesn't feel good enough. Why I couldn't have just continued on the dry road up to the top of that hill, I don't know, but I'm guessing the view at the top of  Tasker Hill was calling me. I didn't get the view I wanted since my face hitting the ground was not one of my top fave views.
Not sure what tomorrow's run will be. Probably some trails and mountains- whatever I can fit in between getting out of work and my son coming home. Whatever it is, I hope I can keep it drama-free. Oh, and one last thing. I love the 6 kudos I've gotten on Strava for this run. "Way to smash your face! Awesome!" Ha ha.