Splat

For several years, the core of my exercise program has been a three mile walk nearly every day. My goal is to complete three miles in 45 minutes, or as close to that as I can make it. In the summer, the hot weather tends to slow me down; I can still usually complete the route in less than 48 minutes. But in the winter months, mid-November until late February, the weather cools off and I can really move. The colder it gets, the faster I can go.

On the Hot Water blog, I wrote about a recent dream and ended with a remark that it would be cool to ignore the effects of gravity anytime I wanted. Tonight, gravity decided to let me know she was still around and on the job.

I was late starting the walk, nearly 6:00 pm and practically dark outside. Temperature around 56 degrees, not cold but not warm either. Ideal weather for the three miles, in fact.

When the weather's chilly, I walk some but add what we used to call quick time and double time, and if it's cold enough I even throw in some sprints, running as fast as my aging legs will allow. I had just completed about half the route and decided to try a short sprint. It turned out to be shorter than anticipated; I'm not sure what happened but I was running at what for me is full bore and apparently stubbed a toe against the curb. If I'd been walking I wouldn't have noticed it, but at the velocity I was traveling it was enough to get my feet higher than my head in a hurry.

Trust me on this - concrete sidewalks can be unforgiving. I had a three pound weight in each hand, and my chest landed on one of them. It took only an instant to get from vertical to horizontal, but I rolled off the pavement onto the grass and spent a minute or two contemplating the laws of physics in what had become a world of pain mixed with a serious helping of humiliation and embarrassment.

A nice lady in the vacinity heard the sound of my weights hitting the concrete, saw me lying on the grass, and trotted over to see if there'd been any survivors. She offered to run me home in her SUV, and although I could've walked on in, I decided to take her up on the offer.

I got home where there was good lighting and checked the damage. Right hand has five nasty knuckle scrapes and a bloody scrape on the heel. Left hand has a moderate bleeding scape on the wrist, just below the face of my watch. Painful scrapes on right elbow and both knees. The biggest problem is the constant pain in my sternum, roughly the center of the breastbone. Feels like I may have fractured something, but probably it's just the afterglow of coming to a sudden stop. With luck, it'll be no more than a minor nuisance in the morning. Fortunately, I'd been dressed for wind chill, which kept the abrasions to a minimum. But all in all, I'm too damned old for this shit. Those are five seconds in my life I'd like to do over differently.