Well, it was bound to happen some day. I tripped over a rock and fell on trail today.
There I was, running along in the greenbelt leaving from Barton springs pool, when about a half mile into my planned 4 mile run, I thought I heard the rattling of a bicycle chain. Dutifully, I turn around to see if there is indeed a bicycle and to determine which way to step when it happened.
My brain registered that I’d lost my footing and that I was not going to be able to recover. Immediately, somewhere in my synapses the reaction to protect the brain was triggered and my arms extended themselves in front of me. At some point during the fall, my conscious mind kicks in and decides that since I work with my hands I needed to protect them too so I quickly devised a plan. As my momentum carried me down, I felt my right knee hit the ground, then my hands. As soon as that happened, I bent my right arm and started to roll into the ground so as to diffuse the energy of my fall. I had just come out from a batch of rough rocks but since I was looking backwards when I tripped, I didn’t know if I was falling into some more rocks or not.
So, there I am, sliding down the trail, on my back with my legs spread and up in the air. After I stop sliding, I sit up and inspect my wounds. I’m covered in dust and dirt and my right knee is burning. Eventually, I get up and walk for a bit and everything is functional. I poured some water from my camelback on my leg and washed off the dust from my knee. I just have a scrape and my knee is sore and hurting but all is well. I still finished my run though. I wasn’t about to let this fall take me down, figuratively speaking anyway. It was a decent run, eventhough I did walk quite a bit more than I wanted to. I ended up being out there for an hour and 4 minutes. Now, I nap. On on to 30k on Sunday, yeehaw!
whew… I was thinking this story was going to have a really bad ending at first.
Stop doing that looking back sh*t, it’s the cyclist’s responsibility to safely pass you. And you will totally take them out if they screw that up.
Ouch! My first major fall on the trail resulted in 9 stitches. Hopefully the worst is now behind us.
Actually, I was thinking about you after I fell. You and Angie both had first falls resulting in stitches. I was lucky.
I was there when Tripped Over A Rock actually tripped over a rock and broke a finger. I, of course, have never fallen on trail…
whew! the first few minutes after are always the toughest.
now if only i could learn to fall on my left side and even out the scars…
(ps, do you have an RSS feed to your blog? i tried subscribing, but it didn’t work…)
Falling on the left is harder to do, cuz, it’s the left side, and stuff. I thought I had an rss feed setup for this blog, but I guess it’s not configured properly. I’ll try to figure it out.
Cheers!
Yeah, just in case anyone suspected that brownie just has a brash exterior but is actually a kind, caring, sympathetic soul way down deep inside (the kind of soul who would stop and kindly help an injured friend), let me set the record straight. Yes, he was there when I tripped over a rock and broke my finger, and he didn’t stop laughing for the remainder of the run.