Adventures in Running

A pre-warning: this post might not be for the faint of heart. Consider yourself warned,
This morning, I had a hard time getting up and going. For some reason, some Saturdays are like that. I wake up and I just don’t want to get out of bed. So I lazed about, I ate some breakfast, and lazed about some more. Then my phone died, so I decided it was a good a time as any to get going. So I started my run at about 11:45 this morning. I think that might be one of the latest times I have ever started running. I chose to go up Provo Canyon, and off I went.
I was about 20 minutes into my run when I did the not-at-all-classy snot rocket. I don’t know if you’ve heard the phrase, but its simple to explain. I’m really sorry for the grossness that I’m about to bring here. A snot rocket is when you have to blow your nose while running, and instead of having a tissue to take care of it, you just press on one side of your nose while you blow really hard through the other nostril, aiming towards the ground and/or just away from others. So, I did this while running, on both nostrils. And I felt a little wetness on one side after I’d finished, so I just used my long sleeve to wipe it off. (THIS IS THE GROSSEST STORY I’VE EVER TOLD HERE AND I AM SORRY) After I did this, I took a look at my sleeve and noticed the blood. Yeesh! So then, after I saw that, the blood started POURING out of my nose. I stopped running and just stood there, by the side of the trail, my nose like a faucet. After a few minutes of me trying to stop it, it wasn’t really doing anything, but my hands were covered in blood, and it was running down my arms. Normally, I might have used my shirt to try and stop the bleeding, but of course today I’m wearing my really expensive WHITE Under Armour shirt, and I didn’t want to ruin it, even though it had blood on it already.
So after a little longer, I remembered a drinking fountain I had seen about 5 minutes back. So I turn around, and make my way to the fountain, still bleeding, and then, finally, a small group of people walk past. They don’t say anything, until they’re pretty far from me, and then they turn around and yelled to ask if I was ok. Since I had one bloody hand on my face, trying to stop the blood, I just gave them a bloody thumbs up with the other. Then I looked down, and I notice one of my legs has blood on it too, from splatter, and it’s on my shorts and sleeves. I felt like I had either been attacked, or that I was a serial killer that wasn’t very good at my job. I finally get to the drinking fountain, where a fellow runner was hanging out. She took a look at me, said “That sucks, I’ve been there man” and then I used the FREEZING cold water to wash the blood off my hands, legs, and face. I was really cold when I was done, but better than looking crazy. At first, I had a thought to try and hold off washing them, so I could take a pic to show, but then I didn’t want to travel all the way back with creepy bloody hands and face.
After I cleaned up, my nose had stopped bleeding, so I thought. After I’d run for about 3 minutes, I had a quick spurt of blood come out for about 30 seconds, then I was done completely. I finished my run, and came home to clean up completely. Luckily, all the blood came out of my shirt and shorts when I washed them. There’s still some on my shoes, but its just a small amount, so hopefully it’ll come off should I ever run in the rain. And there it is. My adventure of today, trying to keep my blood in my body, which was a hard thing to do today. I don’t know how I’d avoid this sort of thing in the future, but I’m going to at least try.

Today, I am thankful that the Provo canyon has a drinking fountain there, in case you have emergencies.