Falling off the Edge of the World

I now have the answer to my hubris-born question, "When will this string of good runs I'm having end?" That answer is yesterday. I had on a nice new pair of Sauconys -- plenty of traction! -- and was running down the bumpy road with my sweetie, Z, when I became airborne for ten minutes. Anyway, that's how long it felt between the time I tripped and the time I hit the ground. I had time to realize I was in shorts and a T-shirt and was about to scrape all the skin off my hands, arms, elbows, knees, and shins (past experience told me this was true), and time to contort my body in a gruesome twisting motion to avoid such scraping. Result: no scraping, except for my right palm, but a big bruise on my hip and sore muscles in my right groin and quad, and -- the oddest injury -- a deep pain in my left oblique muscles. That was some twist, I guess, and not like the one we did last summer.

So I'm hurt, and very depressed. I figure three days rest will fix me right up and yes, I know denial is more than a river in Egypt. When I hit the ground Z was helpful -- he laughed because my first reaction was to stop my chorongraph. Hey! You don't get to count minutes spent writhing on the ground unless you're also engaged in a forward motion. I got up and we finished the run, which lasted about two more miles. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but, well, it's about that Egyptian river.

This takes me into another question I've posited in this blog before: Why do I run? The answer came out of my mouth right after I fell. It's simple -- I hate getting old. I don't want to. I refuse. If I can run, I'm not ready for pasture. I'm childish and self-centered in this regard. Oh, yeah, like no one else is that way on this subject, so don't give me any grief. I've become attached to my life and don't want to leave it before I have to. So much for Zen equanimity.

Advice for me and for you: Keep on breathing.