Oh, the grace

After over-sleeping last Monday, triathlon calf muscle recovery last Friday and Labor day this past Monday, we finally all met up this morning for the 5am run. It's been cool in the mornings lately so it's almost perfect weather to run, although still slightly more humid than I would prefer. We started off alright, although one of my running-mates is still recovering from a cold so she wasn't feeling as well as she would have liked. A little more than half a mile in we were running in an spot where there are many cars parked along the street in front of residences. It was garbage morning and one of the cans out front looked as though it had been disturbed. Thankfully we decided to cross the street at that point as a small skunk emerged from near the can and was running, tail straight up, parallel to us for a few seconds. Nothing to put a little speed on like a skunk sighting. The rest of the run was nearly uneventful and I felt pretty good right up until about 100 feet from the end. I was running in the road next to the sidewalk. I looked ahead, noticed the storm drain and said to myself "Don't step on that." and I didn't. All of a sudden I was headed towards the road, rolling, flailing, then landing in the middle of the street. My running mates heard my graceful stumble and stopped to make sure I was okay. I had scraped up my left knee in a couple spots and my right foot felt a little sore but I was able to walk it in fine. Strength class was fine, not too much stress on my legs or feet.
I got to my desk and noticed more pain in my right foot. By 9:00am I was barely able to walk and my right foot was swollen. Fortunately, my mom works at the same company and she had a clear enough schedule that she was able to drive me to the clinic for x-rays. Two hours later I left with an ace wrap, crutches and a diagnosis of right foot sprain with torn ligaments. I've spent the afternoon on the couch, watching the boys run around as my husband takes care of everything, hoping that this injury passes quickly enough that we can do the biathlon on the 24th.
Paul and I were talking about how many times I've needed medical attention since we got married almost 7 years ago. I've broken 2 toes on separate occasions, sprained a wrist and now the sprained foot and ligaments thing. That's 4 emergency room/clinic visits in that time, and except for today, none of them were exercise or training related. If I do stick with triathlons, of any distance, am I destined to become a clinic regular? The weirdest thing about today's injury is that I have no idea what it was that caused the fall. There was no hole, no curb, no stick to trip on as a did a few weeks ago, nothing. Just my stupid size 11 feet, they're big enough that they should help my balance not impair it. Are some people just more prone to injury? Am I one of those people? Is there anything that can be done about it? Maybe I just need to figure out how I can workout in a plastic bubble, with a padded floor.