On The Run - 12/29/08

2.82 mi / 42:35 min / 15:04 mpm

Is it weird that I check my own blog for the weather report each morning? It sort of feels weird - like commenting in your own comment section - or writing yourself a letter - or talking to yourself out loud in a crowded public place . . . if only the voices would leave me alone!

I wasn't going to run today. The wee one was so sick Saturday night that she slept in her car seat all night. Every time we laid her down the congestion was so bad she would wake up crying. She did pretty well on the trip home and last night she slept on her back all night for the first time ever.

This being the season of giving, the wife is feeling "iffy" and I have had a scratchy throat for two days. I shut off the alarm clock at 5am and assessed the situation . . . . first time home in 10 days, scratchy throat, I had ponied up and run in the snow while on vacation, I had earned a sleep-in. It would be the first scheduled day of running I had missed but you gotta start quitting somewhere . . .

I pulled the covers around me and settled in . . .

KKKKKRRRRRSSSSSCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHH

The baby monitor was on the fritz - the static was redlining the volume meter and the screen was all snow . . .

I got up and fiddled with it . . . . I staggered to the nursery and fiddled with the camera . . . back to the bedroom and fiddled some more . . . turns out the receiver was not plugged in and had finally ran out of charge . . . I plugged it in and everything went back to normal . . . but now I was up . . .

Might as well . . . so I brewed some coffee, got dressed, grabbed my gear, a handful of cough drops and the dawg and it was off to the park.

Rule of Thumb #1: If your illness is confined to above the shoulders, most runners believe that there is no reason not to run. If you illness is below your shoulders (ie; chest) proceed with caution . . .

We arrived at the park around 6am - it was too dark to run the trails (even with my headlamp) so I thought we would run the main paths of the park off leash as the park seemed all but deserted.

We had a great time.

On the return leg, the dawg zeroed in on something down an adjoining path and made a break for it. I quickly saw that he was charging towards a man and his leashed dawg to wish them a "good morning".

"Buckley! Leave it!" I hollered. He broke off the greeting, returned to my side and we carried on down the path.

As I followed the path meandering through the darkened trees, my headlamp offering some but not much illumination, I was thinking about how bad my throat hurt, I was listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on the Ipod and wondering how it was that Paula Poundstone still has a gig, I was thinking about whether or not I should leash the dawg and I was checking the time when it happened:

Rule of Thumb #2: Most people trip and fall from time to time. If you run regularly, you are at increased risk for tripping and falling. Therefore, just about every runner will trip and fall sooner or later (for the record - I have never tripped and fallen while running . . .)

My left toe caught a seam in the pavement and came to a dead stop while the rest of my body kept right on moving. For whatever reason, I had the presence of mind to roll my right shoulder into the fall so instead of just going *ker-splat* and skidding to a face-plant-stop, I sort of did one of those rolls that stuntmen do when they are diving and rolling from gunfire.

I stumbled, rolled over my right shoulder and was back up on one knee all in one move.

"Man, if that dawg owner I just passed saw me do that, they would have seen my headlamp gyrating all over the place as I fell and rolled. That would have looked pretty funny . . ." I thought to myself.

I immediately thought of this scene from "While You Were Sleeping" . . .



I got up, shook it off and kept on keepin' on - not a scratch on me. I stopped by the store on the way home for chicken soup and chili and made plans to spend the rest of the day trying to shake my cold.

I just spent my vacation running in 21 degree weather over snow and ice - I felt fine the whole time and never once slipped.

I had to come back to balmy San Diego before I caught a cold and went sneakers over kiester on a run . . .

Go figure . . .