Day 332 - What.

My exercise life has been somewhat of a disaster recently.

I've been going to these yoga classes that I don't totally understand, but there was an instructor there one time who was wearing a shirt that said Spiritual Gangster, and I can assure you that every time I've been to that studio I've felt at least somewhat spiritually threatened. I have decided that I am not all that interested in inversions, and I prefer breathing out both nostrils at the same time. Seriously, this yoga practice involves meditation where we breathe out of one nostril at a time. I have had to repeat the inner mantra be open throughout every single class.

Yes, I've developed a mantra and I'm actually using it. And yes, it's be open.

Breaking from the strange and spiritually threatening yoga sessions, I decided I would take run along a trail in the river valley in Edmonton on Sunday evening. Of course, I woke up to snow and -10C weather, but I didn't let common sense keep me from running in my woefully inadequate fall gear later in the day. I ran along a trail marked 'horse trail' partway through, that was littered with contradictory signs of a horse head that was crossed out. So it was a horse trail, but no horses were allowed.

Things were going well until I started thinking about bears, at which point I began to panic.

I texted Giselle, asking whether Edmonton has bears. She told me that Edmonton only has squirrels and rabbits.

I texted Katelyn, asking whether I would get eaten by a bear running alone along a trail in Calgary, and she said I probably wouldn't.

So I kept running.

The trail was actually really beautiful, and there truthfully was very little snow. I took my headphones out because I was still a little worried about not hearing a bear, and it turned out that nature had some very nice sounds. Also, there were car sounds because the trail was right near the road. And that was comforting. So there was that.

Then the sun started to go down, and I realised that I probably should have run earlier, brought a running buddy, or carried a flashlight, none of which I did. Oops.

So I started to run back home.

Then I noticed that the fingers of my right hand were going numb and acting kind of funny. And my arm began to grow increasingly painful. 

Yes, folks, I had dislocated my shoulder by running.

Worst part was that I couldn't reduce it, for some reason. I'm normally pretty good at just grabbing the offending limb and jamming it back into its loose socket, but this thing would not go in, no matter how hard I tried. So I ran along in increasing pain, with numb right fingers, texting out an SOS with my left hand, so that at least if I were caught on the dark trail alone, huddled in my cold, sweaty running gear, shoulder dislocated, into the night, perhaps someone would be able to direct the police to my frozen remains.

I'm really not sure how texting Amy in Kuala Lumpur was a useful part of that strategy, but let's say it somehow was.

Long story short, I eventually got home, looked up how to properly reduce a shoulder, held my upper arm against my body with my left hand, grabbed onto my desk with my right hand, and turned until my arm was held in external rotation.

Then I pushed.

The pop was so satisfying.

I think I'm ready to leave Edmonton.