Stupid injuries are the worst

When I was younger, I often hurt myself while playing sports, riding bicycles or taking part in other respectable activities.

On Thanksgiving Day, I hurt myself by pulling up my sleeve.

It started out as a respectable activity, as I thought I would go for a long jog before eating too much food.

I usually run with the Athens Jogging Club, but all of the other member was out of town for the holiday, so I had to run by myself on the cool Thursday morning. I debated for far too long about how many layers of shirts to go with, but went with a stretchy warm running shirt, t-shirt and a sweatshirt hoodie.

The three shirts and running pants kept me warm while in my mind I looked cool, and I started my jog by flying by two women who were moving at a very fast pace (for walking) on the bike path.

I then came upon two men who appeared to be around my age, and I easily passed them while congratulating myself on my fitness.

After I got a little ahead of them, I decided I was getting hot from running so fast, so I thought I would pull up my sleeves. I tugged quickly at the right sleeve of my sweatshirt, but it was stuck on the right sleeve of my stretchy shirt.

I tried my left arm next, and ran into the same problem.

“Maybe my arms are just too muscly,” I thought to myself, not realizing at the time that “muscly” is an actual word. It is!

I decided I would just have to be hot and muscly for a while, so I kept jogging for what seemed like miles but in reality was about 20 feet.

“I’m just too hot,” I then said to myself while smiling and making mental jokes about being “too hot.”

“I have got to pull these sleeves up,” I responded to myself.

So I pulled harder on my right sleeve and successfully pulled it up, and then did the same with the left sleeve.

And that’s when a jolt of pain shot into my right shoulder.

“What is going on?” I thought to myself. “Did something hit me?” I stopped and then looked around to try to figure out what had happened and to make sure the two guys behind me couldn’t catch up with me while I was stopped for a moment.

“Good, they’re gone. They probably couldn’t handle all of this running,” I thought to myself. “And apparently I just injured myself pulling up my sleeve. How in the world did that happen?”

I walked for a few minutes trying to stretch my arms and move my back around while also trying to get the pain to ease up.

“They really need to put a warning label on those sweatshirts!” I thought to myself. “Who knew it could be so dangerous to pull up your sleeves!”

I finally got the pain to slow down, so I was able to speed up and start my jog once again. I pushed ahead to my turnaround point and then headed back home along a main street while trying not to move my right arm too much.

Because it was Thanksgiving and I had a responsibility to be friendly, though, I ignored the pain from my terrible injury (much like Rocky in every Rocky movie) and waved at every driver that made the mistake of looking toward me.

I should point out that a good way of passing the time if you are bored with jogging is to wave at people and count how many wave back. You may look stupid, but it makes the jog more interesting.

I picked up quite a few waves and strange looks while jogging back, and I finally made it home where I painfully took off my sweaty sweatshirt and sat down to try to rest.

I pretty much sat, ate and rested for the rest of the day, and then mostly sat and rested for the next few days, but my shoulder kept hurting.

While I felt young and strong just by completing the long run on Thanksgiving morning, I also felt a little old due to the stupid injury. It made me think of some other injuries in recent years that have included:

• Hurting my back by sitting down in my chair at work.
• Hurting my back by trying to touch my toes.
• Hurting my leg by while stretching after waking up one morning.

I guess stupid injuries are just a part of getting older, and I should accept them while also finding some humor in them. More importantly, though, I’m happy that I can still get out there and run for several miles and still be in decent shape.

And most important of all, of course, is that I was way faster than those two other guys out running on Thanksgiving. I’d pat myself on the back, but it hurts too much.

 

What are some stupid ways that you have hurt yourself? Feel free to comment below. Thanks.