Two weeks ago, at Thursday's master swim class, we wrapped up the day's workout by doing 25-yd sprints with deck-ups. For those unfamiliar with deck-ups, you swim to the end of the pool and then pull yourself up onto the deck without pushing off the bottom of the pool. The purpose is to work your upper body strength and get your body used to going from horizontal to vertical which can often cause light headed issues. My first two deck-ups went well, but the third one was disastrous. I swam to the end if the pool and then started pulling myself out of the pool. I got about thigh-high on the edge of the pool when my hands slipped out from under me on the slippery wet deck. At that point I started sliding backwards into the pool. Apparently my right testicle was above the deck surface and as I slipped backwards it got squished on the edge of the pool. Extreme pain shot from my testicle, through my stomach, and up into my throat. I had visions of a popped grape dangling in my scrotum. At this point the next person in my lane was closing fast and I needed to haul myself out of the pool, pronto. I pulled partially up and then whale rolled onto the deck and pulled myself up to my hands and knees. At this point it was all I could do to keep from vomiting. I couldn't decide whether to share my incident with class and bag out of the rest of the workout or "nut up" and get back in the pool for the last deck-up. Well, if I had known my fellow swimmers, I probably would have called it a day, but I couldn't bear sharing my story with them (as opposed to the whole world now) so I rolled back into the pool for my last deck-up. I'll have you know that I made sure my hands were well planted on the next one! I now call this drill "nut-ups" rather than "deck-ups!"
The second story happened yesterday morning. Our shower drain at home often becomes partially plugged which can sometime be cleared by stomping over the drain causing the force of water to clear the drain. This works similar to plunging a plugged toilet. Well the tub was backing up with water and I decided to plunge it by stomping on the drain. Without my contacts in I am nearly blind and thus couldn't see that the problem was actually the drain plug sitting in the drain upside down. Our drain plug has a small bolt sticking out of it to hold it in place when properly placed in the drain. However at this moment the bolt was sticking up (instead of down) which I couldn't see when I stomped on the drain to plunge it. After stomping on the drain plug bolt, I started squealing like a wounded monkey (well what I envision a wounded monkey squeal would sound like) while dancing in the shower on one foot wondering what I had just done. Lin came running and glanced at my foot and said it was fine. I got out of the shower feeling like the idiot that I am and proceeded to out my contacts in so I could inspect the damage. Well, there was damage all right, my foot was bleeding! Now I am sure I acted like there was a quart if blood on the floor when in reality there was a small smudge around the wound. I was certain that I stomped on that bolt hard enough it had embedded at least half way through my foot! After much complaining Lin took another look and informed me that I did not puncture the full thickness of the skin but I still wasn't convinced. While eating breakfast I was still complaining and told Lin we need to watch this so it didn't get infected and ruin my quest to Ironman. By this point Lin had heard enough and my complaining was just too funny. She tried not to laugh but couldn't help it. I was so worried and freaking out over being such an idiot and she made me laugh at how stupid I was acting.
So in conclusion, I realized that the biggest risk to injuring myself, is myself. There are things I can control, and some I cannot. So if you see me doing anything in a very slow and controlled manner, it's me trying not to do something insanely stupid resulting in an injury and ruining my quest to participate in Ironman.