Ouch.

It’s the Monday before I run five miles on Saturday and I’m a walking mess. Don’t worry, nothing extreme, just a mix of me being a clutz and a recurring Achilles injury.

1. My back is killing me. Particularly in the middle, on the left side, the part right behind my ribs. This strain is making it impossible to get a good back stretch in. It also pains me every time I take a deep breath and god forbid I laugh. (But you should, I only share how embarrassingly injury-prone I am so that someone may be amused by it.) My bra really doesn’t help either. It’s like having a bruise on your arm and wrapping an elastic band around it.

2. My inflamed Achilles make walking, pressing a gas pedal, and flexing my foot seem like daunting tasks. I have to be real with myself. As much as I love skiing, the equipment is not for me. Both times I’ve skied this year and the once last year, resulted in incredible lower limb pain. I have some (major) heel problems in both feet. I don’t often irritate them though, so I don’t give them much thought. I primarily work at a desk and I run, but not like I did in high school. Ski boots seem to really tick them off though, throughout the day I lose feeling in my toes and get foot cramps. I’ve tried every variation of size for my ski boots too, they’re just not for me.

So, I know where the Achilles inflammation is from (thanks, ski boots) but what happened to my back? There’s a couple possibilities, most like a combination of the two I think. When we arrived at our house in Holiday Valley for the weekend I went off exploring the minute I took off my boots. This is a key piece of information because it means I was in my socks, running up and down stairs. I made it all the way up to the third floor and on my way back down, after taking one step, I slipped and tumbled the rest of the way down the steep stairs. There was no railing I could grasp for in reprieve. I happened to be mid-sentence with one of the guys on the trip and he stood helpless at the top of the stairs until I was done and asked if I was okay. I felt pretty okay, a little hurt, and definitely had broken my pride. He later confessed he was scared I would break into tears and he wouldn’t have known what to do.

The second culprit to my back injury happened during the ski day but not while going down a hill, go figure. The lift was arriving at the ramp to get off and somehow I didn’t get off right away. I kind of fell back into the seat and noticed myself being lifted back up. In a panic I pushed off the seat and into the air. The next few milliseconds were spent hanging in air doing a Die Hard-like mid-air run before hitting the ground and slamming backwards onto the ramp. I knocked the wind out of myself but was back on my feet in a moment because I was so mortified.

So which was it, human stair sledding or stuntman chairlift tricks? I’m guessing both, but either way, it makes me wince to sit straight up. Here’s to hoping everything gets better asap!