Slippery 1.8

Running in the Winter.

A How To.

Or a How To Not.

Today is the 7^th of January as I sit down to write this. It probably won’t be posted until Thursday, so I apologize for the past tense. I take that back, I don’t apologize. Deal.

So we are in the heat of winter here in good ol’ Spokane. And the roads are a little slick. To be fair, the trails are a little slicker.

I have run most days of winter, no matter what. I spent some time in South Dakota. I braved the -11 degree temperature runs.

If you cover up just right, you should be fine.

But there is some treachery out there you must be aware of.

Ice. And snow on top of ice.

Now, we all worry about running on such degrees, but we go out and do it anyways. We look mighty funny, jogging along, at a pace much slower than the summer, but we are out there anyway. And then that patch of ice catches us and we slip, slide, whee-ing along with random sound effects spewing from our mouths, trying to avoid the long list of obscenities that trail through our minds.

I have actually never fallen while running.

I have fallen walking.

I know, it is like some karmic act telling me you should have been running.

This winter, I have fallen a total of 12 times. 11 of them were yesterday.

A few winters back, I fell walking down the steps of my house, landing square on my tailbone, catching the edge of the final step to the walkway. I sat there, forced myself to laugh to avoid the tears, and got up. I ran the two and a half miles it took to get to the YMCA and hopped on a treadmill for ten more miles, and then hopped back off and ran home. I thought, oh I will run off the soreness. Well, my tailbone was bruised for a few months. Sitting was difficult for quite some time.

Yesterday, I couldn’t laugh at the last one. I slipped sideways on the trail and caught a few of my own limbs on the way down. Today, I sit here, a bruised shoulder and wrist, a nice big bruise on my hip, scratches and a bump on the head. I knew the moment I hit my head, I was going to be in trouble. I tried to sit right up, but it only increased the dizziness. Headache was immediate. And the tears just fell.

I was thankful it was dark, so that the people I was with couldn’t see me, but they could hear the shaky breaths as we continued on down the trail.

I am more so thankful I was actually with people. Had I not been with them, I wouldn’t have gotten up. I would have probably let the blurred vision and woozy feeling take me over and just stayed there in the middle of that trail.

Sometimes I am thankful for my stubbornness, not wanting to seem weak or fragile in front of others forced me to get back up and keep on going.

Can’t run for a couple days, which is frustrating, but maybe it will give me time to be more thankful for my friends.