So, I have been rehabbing an ouchy ankle area (I am a medical expert and that is the technical term for it) and as of late have been just flailing about with my running. Not running every day.. doing some walking, sweating a lot, looking like hell, you know the drill. I've been doing my part to show all non runners why they shouldn't be running.You're welcome, now take you and your chip bag and your 2 liter of diet Pepsi and go to the couch to watch the Hoarders marathon.. it's OK. you don't have to run! You do what you do, I will do what I do! Don't judge me and I won't judge you!
Cut to the chase, yesterday I ran with my buddy Dan and it was the usual, I ran down Woodward to the ex-Compuware building, past all the M1 Rail construction shenanigans.. and wow was it HUMID. I could already tell I was in bad shape but, Dan had brought along Brian who is in great shape. So off we went after I dashed in for some water. With my game face on.
We took the cut to the river and went down to Port Authority, Brian continued on to Belle Isle, he wanted to run longer. So off her went. I was jealous. Dan and I turned back and as we went up the cut I decided to take the cut all the way back and cut down my distance. Dan and parted and off I went to sneak into the almost-completed-new-area of the cut.
Well I made it about 100 yards in before a few guys in construction hats started screaming at me angrily. Oops! I sheepishly turned around and instead went up to Gratiot to hop onto St Aubin.
I had dropped all pretensions of enjoying this run at this point and probably looked like I was in pain. I kinda was. This comes into play in a few minutes.
My plan was to hang a left at Mack. And, I missed the turn.. so by the time I got to Canfield I realized this and I took my left there. It was actually kinda cool to find a new route, part of why I enjoy running outdoors is this weird satisfaction I get from exploring new areas and just, exploring, I like running around my digs and really getting to know the landscape.
As I am heading down Mac I realized that it's humid enough that my tank top had become heavier from the sweat it had absorbed from my torso and, this weight caused it to rub on my poor nipples like sandpaper. What I am getting at is, I had bleeding nipples. D'oh!
The thing about runners bloody nipples (bloody 'ell, guvnah!) is that your shirt makes it look MUCH MUCH worse than it is. The blood mixes in with the sweat and fans out and it looks pretty epic. It's not that epic.
I considered taking my shirt off but, then my headphone cord would be just flapping all around my body distracting me and I was hurtin so, I didn't.
So there I am with what looks like two massive chest wounds running erratically down Mac and I encounter a gang.
I am not saying like, thugs with handguns, or something from West Side Story but, they were a gang. A bunch of black kids in a pack, hanging out as a unit, blocking the sidewalk.
As I ran towards them a few glanced over and their eyes widened slightly and one of them laughed, I imagine he was thinking "what a fool! It's too hot to run and he looks terrible!"
A few started hootin' and they actually cleared the sidewalk for me, as I ran by one of them said "kick it's ass!" and held out his hand, I gave him some skin.My guess is that some of them had run in track or cross country themselves, they all looked in good shape.
Here is the best part, as I continued on an old lady was coming up the walk out of her apartment in front of me and she looked over.
What she saw was this: A white guy, running from a group of black people that were hooting and hollering a little bit and looking my way, a look of pain on my face (the run was kicking my ass). On my chest, there are what appears to be two gunshot wounds.
The look of pure horror on her face was classic! All I could think of to say as I ran past her was something like "I'm OK, runner's wounds!" and I didn't look back.
I hope the cops didn't get a 911 call about a delirious white male gunshot victim stumbling through the streets of Detroit in a bad area! I actually picked up my pace and got back to my gym as fast as I could because I was half expecting to be flagged down by cops and being quite embarrassed!
So, it's true that I forgot to put Vaseline on my money makers and as a result did some bleeding (and don't get me started on how painful the shower was after.. YEEEEEOW! that's no fun, showering with bleeding nipples). However, on the plus side, I had an amusing occurrence.
I will butter them nipples good next time, regardless!
Footnote, my "shortcut" actually made me run about 9.5 instead of 9.3. um, oops.
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