Have a nice trip?
...see you next fall!
Before this year, I think the last time I fell was back in 2005 at Bryce Canyon. Not on a hiking trail or anything fun like that. On the walking path at the top. The nice, flat walking path. My 3 year old nephew stepped right in front of me, and somehow in my efforts to avoid trampling him and thus ruining a nice day of vacation with a sightseeing trip to the hospital, I did a very good impression of a tree falling. I had scrapes all over my arms and knees.
Well, that's how I remember it, anyway. This picture doesn't make my injuries look all that terrible (the high-waisted mom shorts and short shirt, on the other hand, that's causing me a little delayed trauma). But I was traumatized by my fall (OK, trip). It was pretty ridiculous. I'd never put up with that level of whining from one of my kids, who are likely to hear, "You're fine! Get up!" or "Ooooh, blood! Cool!" after falling. In fact, just this summer I dragged my 6 year old back onto his bike after a fall because he was killing my run pace. I truly don't know how my husband managed to refrain from smacking me.
That was then, this is now.
One of my most recent run logs on Daily Mile started something like this:
Dear hip, the pavement sends its apologies and wonders when you'll be back to pick up the skin you left behind.
"Why do you keep falling?" one of my coworkers asked me that morning.
The short answer is that I'm not all that coordinated. The other short answer is that I'm out doing more things where it's easier to fall. It's a bit of a challenge to fall walking from the house to the car; it's less difficult to fall when you're running, and tired, in the dark.
As falls go, this one wasn't too bad, and if I warranted paparazzi coverage, I'd be a shoo-in for America's Funniest Home Videos. Well, other than the bleeping they'd have to do over the audio portion. Usually I'm on the ground before I know what's happening. This time, I tripped, took a few gigantic steps as I tried to catch myself, and then landed on my left hip. Fortunately, I didn't tear my tights. Unfortunately, the bruise is high enough up on my hip where I couldn't take a picture of it without showing half of my butt (and of course I took a picture of it...these are my war wounds :D), so I can't post it here because, frankly, I treasure my followers and wouldn't want to chase any of you off.
Wednesday evening my youngest learned to roller skate. It was a little quicker than the bike riding process, but still pretty painful--for me. I am the most patient person in the world at work; with my own kids, not so much. The whole "This is what you do..." "I AM doing that!!!" when he's clearly not is infuriating. Once he got up a little bit of courage and struck out on his own, J had several hard falls. He wanted to quit. He stuck it out, though, and by the end he was crying about leaving instead of falling.
Hopefully, he's learning the lesson that avoiding the chance of getting hurt may keep you from crying, but it also deprives you of the opportunity to do a lot of fun things. I'm not at the point yet where I'm embracing the risk. I'm not tough. It's still a big deal to me when I fall. But, so far anyway, I haven't let it stop me. Tomorrow I'm running in the Pere Marquette Endurance Trail Race. There's been rain in and out of the forecast. It's 7.8ish miles trail. I imagine I'm going to have some scrapes and bruises from this one.
And hopefully this time they'll be in places I can show you.
Before this year, I think the last time I fell was back in 2005 at Bryce Canyon. Not on a hiking trail or anything fun like that. On the walking path at the top. The nice, flat walking path. My 3 year old nephew stepped right in front of me, and somehow in my efforts to avoid trampling him and thus ruining a nice day of vacation with a sightseeing trip to the hospital, I did a very good impression of a tree falling. I had scrapes all over my arms and knees.
 |
| Bryce Canyon is beautiful |
Well, that's how I remember it, anyway. This picture doesn't make my injuries look all that terrible (the high-waisted mom shorts and short shirt, on the other hand, that's causing me a little delayed trauma). But I was traumatized by my fall (OK, trip). It was pretty ridiculous. I'd never put up with that level of whining from one of my kids, who are likely to hear, "You're fine! Get up!" or "Ooooh, blood! Cool!" after falling. In fact, just this summer I dragged my 6 year old back onto his bike after a fall because he was killing my run pace. I truly don't know how my husband managed to refrain from smacking me.
That was then, this is now.
One of my most recent run logs on Daily Mile started something like this:
Dear hip, the pavement sends its apologies and wonders when you'll be back to pick up the skin you left behind.
"Why do you keep falling?" one of my coworkers asked me that morning.
The short answer is that I'm not all that coordinated. The other short answer is that I'm out doing more things where it's easier to fall. It's a bit of a challenge to fall walking from the house to the car; it's less difficult to fall when you're running, and tired, in the dark.
As falls go, this one wasn't too bad, and if I warranted paparazzi coverage, I'd be a shoo-in for America's Funniest Home Videos. Well, other than the bleeping they'd have to do over the audio portion. Usually I'm on the ground before I know what's happening. This time, I tripped, took a few gigantic steps as I tried to catch myself, and then landed on my left hip. Fortunately, I didn't tear my tights. Unfortunately, the bruise is high enough up on my hip where I couldn't take a picture of it without showing half of my butt (and of course I took a picture of it...these are my war wounds :D), so I can't post it here because, frankly, I treasure my followers and wouldn't want to chase any of you off.
Wednesday evening my youngest learned to roller skate. It was a little quicker than the bike riding process, but still pretty painful--for me. I am the most patient person in the world at work; with my own kids, not so much. The whole "This is what you do..." "I AM doing that!!!" when he's clearly not is infuriating. Once he got up a little bit of courage and struck out on his own, J had several hard falls. He wanted to quit. He stuck it out, though, and by the end he was crying about leaving instead of falling.
 |
| Here, he's playing "Dead Bug", which is funny, because it just how I looked after falling. |
Hopefully, he's learning the lesson that avoiding the chance of getting hurt may keep you from crying, but it also deprives you of the opportunity to do a lot of fun things. I'm not at the point yet where I'm embracing the risk. I'm not tough. It's still a big deal to me when I fall. But, so far anyway, I haven't let it stop me. Tomorrow I'm running in the Pere Marquette Endurance Trail Race. There's been rain in and out of the forecast. It's 7.8ish miles trail. I imagine I'm going to have some scrapes and bruises from this one.
And hopefully this time they'll be in places I can show you.
The more you fall, the better your writing gets - so, that's a plus! I am not going to tell you the last time I fell, because then I will fall and it will be because I was doing something stupid, not something cool like running and excersising. Still a HERO!
ReplyDeleteHi Lady,
ReplyDeleteI am so far behind on my blogging and I have not posted or commented in days....sorry:(
That is a beautiful picture of you and your hubby:) So sweet! Have a great weekend!
I can definitely relate to your post. I started trail running this year, and good grief, have I taken my fair share of tumbles. I think part of it is due to the nature of the trails, lots of tree roots and rocks, but part of it is also fatigue which causes me to not pick my feet up a much when I run. When I get tired I tend to "shuffle" my feet more.
ReplyDeleteDo you trip after running several miles, at which point you may have some muscle fatigue?
On the trail, I tripped once on each loop. The first time due to distraction and the second fatigue probably was it. The other times, sadly, have been running on the sidewalk (this last time not quite a mile into the run). Maybe I need to pick up my feet more.
ReplyDeleteSo if you do something where you're supposed to fall, like skydiving or bungee jumping, does that mean that you will automatically be a pro?
ReplyDelete