Sunday, April 22, 2007

Official Weathered Runner

I've been training, if not religiously, at least decently hard for several races I want to do this year. I have at least three triathlons I want to do, with one checked off (UC Davis Sprint Triathlon- see earlier blog), and two more planned for this summer- Donner Lake Sprint Triathlon, and the Pyramid Lake Triathlon. Two runs I also want to do in the next two weekends: The Nevada Wide Open Marathon De Mayo (although I'm only planning on doing the 10K) and Escape from Prison Hill, which is a half marathon that I'm splitting with Kevin (so I'm doing a half of a half- but the longer 7 mile half :). This run has some pretty intimidating hills/mountains, and I've been running some trails with my two faithful library companions, Chris and Turi. (I somehow conned them into running Escape from Prison Hill with me!) Even though it was a little windy today, it was a good day for run, and we did a 3.5 mile loop up at Peavine with some extra hill training. (Whose idea was that again?!?!) But not 5 minutes into the run my shoe caught on a rock because I wasn't lifting my feet, and I totally ate it. Luckily I was wearing long work-out type pants, so I got up quick as I could (felt like such an idiot!) ignored it, and we kept going. When we finally stopped at the end of the run I checked out my knee, and lo and behold, it was all bloody, and my hands were peppered with dirt under the skin as well. I haven't fallen while running in about 10 years, probably because mostly I run on my treadmill. Then Turi pointed out that both he and Chris had recently banged up their hands from falling on previous runs. I guess it was just my turn! I have a picture of all of our scabby hands together, but first, here is a shot of my knee:



I've decided that this shows my dedication to the sport and not to idiocy or clumsiness. (And here you say, whatever you need to tell yourself to make you feel better!) Now here are the hands:

4 comments:

Turi Becker said...

Definitely it shows dedication - you've gotta have a few scars and scrapes; makes it worth it. Like you'd say in skiing - "if you're not falling, you're not learning." In the case of running, though, it's probably learning to pay closer attention...

SnowLeopard said...

Yes, and pick up my feet! Still, it was a fun day- and I do want to take a picture of all of our beat-up hands together to add here later... :)

Turi Becker said...

I put a hand down a couple times on my run today, too, but managed not to break the skin.

SnowLeopard said...

You must have been running pretty fast then! Glad you're not all bloodied-up like me. :)