Falling Down on the Job

No, literally. I fell down. I can honestly say that as far as I can recall, this is the first time I've ever fallen while running, and I sure made the most of it. It all went down, so to speak, on the darkened pre-dawn streets of suburban north Dallas; Plano, to be specific, at Luke's Locker. I'm in Dallas for the rest of the week working the Uptown Run, and my first stop was the Wednesday morning social run at Luke's. It was a mere five minutes into our run that I took a tumble just as we were crossing on a concrete overpass. One minute I was bipedal and the next I was on the ground. The brunt of the impact was absorbed by my left knee, the remainder by the palms of my hands. My first thought upon impact was, "Holy crap this HURTS." My second thought was, "If I just ripped my brand new Craft capris I'm going to be beyond pissed." Fortunately, while the skin beneath the capris was more or less shredded, the fabric remained unscathed. What a testament to the brand!

As I'm typing this now, 36 hours later, I'm still a bit battered. I was going to upload a photo that I snapped on my phone, but the photo doesn't adequately capture the various shades and contours of my mangled knee. Suffice it to say that my kneecap is swollen not unlike a reddish blue grapefruit and I'm probably going to have a killer scar. Let me also add that trying to bathe and wash your hair when your hands feel like they're on fire is one of life's least pleasant experiences. Fortunately I've run several times since then and, though the knee throbs a bit on the downhills, there doesn't seem to be any serious damage. I've got to tell you, when I promised I'd stop blogging about mundane runs this isn't exactly the alternative I was envisioning. I suppose the moral of this little story is that I'm a klutz and I'm lucky I didn't bust my head open. Every day is a gift.

Thankfully my day took a turn for the better late in the afternoon when I had the chance to drive to Ft. Worth and visit my good friend Cindy and her kidlet Eloise. When I last saw Cindy she had just given birth; now Ellie is almost two and Cindy is pregnant again! How time flies. We had an awesome time hanging out and catching up on life, and I'm so glad I had the chance to make it out there. I made the most of my time in Ft. Worth by sneaking in a run on the Trinity River trail while Cindy and Ellie went for a walk. The late afternoon air was warm and dry and the sun was slowly setting on the horizon, painting a truly picturesque scene from my vantage point on the crushed gravel trail. It's funny; when I lived in Ft. Worth I always complained about how boring it was to run here. Now that I've traveled and lived in so many other places I can honestly say the river trail is a near perfect training venue. 25-30 miles of crushed gravel trails that are wide, clean, flat and well-maintained, not to mention safe and accessible by at least a dozen different spots around town. I may not have appreciated it while living here, but I can assure you I enjoyed every minute of my run this afternoon.


View of downtown Ft. Worth from the Trinity River Trail