Nose Bleedin’

I was doing my usual Saturday run this morning, and decided to do an easy 6 miles. When I say ‘easy’, I mean, I was running slowly. For some reason, I was tired this morning, and I didn’t even feel like running, but I went ahead anyway. Why do I do this? I don’t know. I’m going through a running slump right now, I never even want to run lately. I wake up every morning, and just sort of slog to get going, and then I have a lazy run that’s shorter than usual. I know I should probably have some rest days, but I don’t want to have rest days – not with my month of races coming up. Anyway, as I was reaching the three-mile turn around mark, I had to do a snot-rocket. (For those that don’t know, even though you should, a snot-rocket is what you do when you’re running and need to blow your nose. Put your finger on one nostril, and blow as hard as you can through the other, to clear out nasal passageways.) I did this, no problem, like I do every week (yes, I know it’s gross), and kept running. After a few steps, blood started POURING out of my nose, literally pouring out. I stopped running, and started to walk, to try to make it stop. I had no luck. After a few feet, I saw bathroom up ahead on the trail, so I went to it. IT WAS LOCKED! I thought those things had to be unlocked at all times in the summer, but I guess that’s not true. I went to the river and put my hands in it, to wash off some of the blood, and naturally, I stepped into the river, thereby sloshing my shoe, and now I just had a wet foot. I then decided it was time to turn around and go home. I stopped at some sprinklers, to wash off more blood, (it wouldn’t stop!) and I was clean. After walking a little bit on my way back, my nose had stopped, so I decided to try to run again. After another few feet, blood again. It bled for about another mile/mile and a half, with me just walking, trying to stop it. Maybe I should have stopped altogether, and not done anything at all, and not moved until it stopped, but that didn’t really sound appealing to me, I just wanted to get back. Finally, I found a bathroom that was unlocked, and went in. I saw myself in the mirror, with blood literally all over my face and hands. Oh man. No wonder people had looked at me horrifyingly on my walking back. I washed myself off, and by then, the blood had stopped. I walked the rest of the mileage back to my car, and that was that. Luckily, no more blood, and now I’m scared to do a snot rocket, because of this problem. It’s never happened before, but now that it has happened, will it happen again?! Next time I do it (which is a lot of runs) (I know, I’m a monster) I’ll just be paranoid.