Severe Hamstring Injury

All this week, Jenny and I have been doing the trapeze stuff at the resort. We've done trapeze at Club Med resorts for the past 12 to 14 years, and the Breezes resort setup is identical. Today, though, something went wrong with one of my trips. I was doing a "Planche" (which I'd done several times -- probably over 30 times over the course of my trapezing) and on the first swing out I went to get my legs into "first position" -- which is basically to get my legs up and over the bar. For whatever reason, though, I got one leg barely over the bar, and the other one was hanging down. On the swing back, then, the centrifical force of the hanging leg flung it out even further, thereby forcing me into a "splits" -- which my body is definitely not used to doing. I heard 3 "rips" in my leg as I swung back towards the board and I knew something was seriously wrong. I got down to the safety net and tried to haul myself towards the place where we drop down to the ground -- but every pull with my hands along the net was unbelievably painful. The circus team crew got me off the net and to the ground and asked if I wanted the nurse (to which I replied in the affirmative). At this point, it felt a bit like I might faint, so I sat down as we waited for the nurse. Then the circus crew transported me to a chair in the shade. What was particularly weird was that my vision had changed to monochrome -- very bright and dark, but no colours. Eventually, though, by the time the nurse arrived, I could see colours. The nurse checked my blood pressure and pulse and everything there was fine. I had two ibuprofen and then I was wheeled into the nurses office and she put some (horse?) linament on my leg. Some of the linament hit "the boys", which wasn't particularly pleasant. Then she put some ice water on a compress and wrapped my leg. I was told no alcohol for the rest of the day (which we eventually ignored, although I limited my intake), and to keep putting ice on the back of the leg. The resort supplied a shower curtain and extra sheet so that we could fix up the bed in our room to allow me to keep ice on it during the night. I had 2 ibuprofen every 6 hours or so. I was supplied crutches by the nurses office to let me get around, but every step -- even with the crutches -- was painful.

So, of course, the reason this non-running event made it into my running blog is (a) hamstring tears are very common in runners and (b) now I get to try to repair this injury and get in marathon shape within 5 months for Boston. So this is going to be interesting.