Hell's Hills and a Stiff Thumb

So just for fun this past weekend Patricia (one of my teammates and training partners) and I decided to do the 25k "Hell's Hills" Trail Run at Rocky Hill Ranch in Smithville, TX. Originally, Ross, Bernice, Patricia and I were to all do the race. At the last minute Ross caught a stomach bug and Bernice opted to workout with Jay a little closer to home.

Bernice, Patricia and I had done the 25k Bandera Trail run back in January when it was like 14 degrees outside. That really sucked. This outing was much, much better. Patrica and I were able to shave a full 67 minutes off of our time. We should have come in around the 3 hour mark but everything after mile 10 was pretty painful for me since I haven't been able to do any hard workouts. Still at 3:38 we were well ahead of those that finished at the 5 plus hour mark. The Hell's Hills part of the race took place in the last couple of miles of the race with a couple of good climbs and descents. My biggest concern was falling on my thumb. Even though it was braced, I still didn't want to trip and fall. Thankfully Patricia was nice enough to do plenty of falling for both of us. What a gal that Patricia is.

Above: The thumb spica

That brings me to the thumb update. I'm just over two weeks post op and in a spica hand based cast. Man am I thankful for this thing. Having my wrist and forearm wrapped up sucked in a major way. Essentially for 2 weeks I wasn't able to do anything. I wasn't supposed to get the incision wet so it could heal which meant I couldn't get all sweaty working out. That meant no running and left only light weight workouts and stretching.

Above: Steri Strips holding the incision together

On Monday I was able to take the stitches out. Pretty simple really. I removed the steri-strips to expose the incision and wow...this thing looks spectacular. I'm not sure what Dr. Rust used to make the cut or how she stitched it up but my career as a hand model should be intact. I'll be surprised if there is really much of a scar at all. Anyway, to get the stitches out it was just grab one end and pull. No pain, no fuss, no drama. Just a clean incision that's healing nicely.

Above: Parker pointing to the incision after I took the stitches out

Right now the thumb is still really stiff and I can't do much with it for another 13 days or so until I start rehab. I'm not sure but I'm told that rehab may consist of gripping a squeezy ball and playing some low intensity thumb wars. Should be fun. I mean really, what's not to like about a squeezy ball and thumb wars?