Blood Sweat and Tears on the Christmas Morning run-Graphic Pics

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a great time last night at a cocktail party hosted by some of our good friends here in Charleston. We ate lots of yummies, drank some wine and opened some hilarious gifts. We came home and watched National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. This morning we got up and opened our stockings from each other, then got decked out in some new running gear (one of my $12 skirts) and headed to the beach for 5 miles, along the road not actually on the sand. It was HOT, 77 degrees, so we were struggling a little. We had maybe a quarter of a mile left and I was feeling like I had a little gas left and could finish strong...until I tripped. There was no recovering from this stumble, I went down hard on my right side and skinned my elbow, knee and hand pretty good. It instantly brought tears to my eyes and Rich grabbed my arm to keep me from getting blood on my new gear:) I would like to say that I was diving out of the way of a speeding car, or stumbled over a palm frond that had fallen onto the sidewalk. But the truth is I just stumbled over my own big feet, an all too commen phenomenon in my world. I am known much more for my clumsiness than for my gracefulness. In fact, one of my nicknames growing up was Grace. Once at the doctor, they interrogated me because I had so many scrapes and bruises they actually thought I might have been hit or abused, and it even took a social worker interviewing my parents before they were oonvinced I was just THAT clumsy. Some things never change! After we got back to the car, I used a towel we had and some ocean water to clean it up as much as possible but it still looked pretty rough.