Scrape.
Life is a funny thing. It can be linear, circular, or just plain crooked. But here’s how it works for me. I started realizing in college that I hated walking by myself. I’d be strollin to class and then bling, i’d realize that I was running. Ya, running. Backpack bouncing off the back of my head and all. I’d see people later in the day - ‘Ryan, why were you running to class?’. Umm, I can’t help it.
That’s when I realized I ought to pick up running as a gig. And I did. I love to compete, I love to train, I love being outside and breathing fresh air at rates uncommon to many. I love bouncing off of trees and hoppin over rocks. But every once in awhile I run into a problem that brings me to a grinding hault. Literally. It happened twice this week. My feet aren’t keeping up with my eyes, or my eyes aren’t keeping up with my speed. So here’s how it rolls.
Wednesday, I was running a local trail, hogback loop. I’ve been working on speeding up my downhill since that’s where i got my tail kicked in racing last year. I was in a zone - bouncin, hoppin, boundin. I reached up to adjust my hat, a split second goes by and my left foot hits a rock that it should have been going over. Two more split seconds go by as my hands try to come down from my hat, but in that first split second my body went parallel with the ground. I arched my head back as my shoulder met the first rock, I felt my hip bone nail a rock straight on. The rest was foggy. I skidded about six inches as is evidence by the scrape going down my hip. I layed there scared and groaning feeling the elements of pain coming in from all over my body. I was scared I broke something - I hit both my hip and shoulder rather hard. I started to move, I was ok but clearly bleeding from several spots. I have a policy to not look at the wounds beneath my clothes until I get to the car. So I ran it down high on adrenaline, hands bleeding and pressed against my shirt. I hit the parking lot and took a quick inventory: bloody hands, knee, elbow and shoulder. I lifted my shirt. Split hip and lots of blood. Ohhhhh geez. Adrenaline was wearing off. Tears were coming to my eyes. I got to my house, called for Rick as I made my way to the kitchen sink. I was crying as I washed the rocks and dirt from my arms and hands. Rick appears, he’s on the phone. He takes one look at me, his eyes light up and he clammers into the phone “Pete, I’ve got to go - Ryan’s bleeding - he fell running - I’ve got to go!”. Oh how I must have looked bad. Rick and Reed cleaned me up like champs. I was good to go.
So Friday comes along. I’m still a little sore, but the day is beautiful and I want to run. I go back to hogback, what the hell, I’ll give it a try. I do the reverse loop. On the descent - My right foot hits a rock and I come to face to face with the trail again. This time my hands make it down. They both hit rocks opening up previous wounds. My body rolls and I hit the right hip this time, scrape my wrist and back on a rock. I’m laying on the ground, staring at the sky thinking, “Shit. Damn. how in the hell did I do that. Ow. Ow. Ow.” Not as bad as weds but I was still hurting pretty good. I made it home, I cleaned myself up. And I was mad, mad at myself for being careless. For making the same mistake twice. For hurting myself, and mad that I would be spending the weekend recovering.
My wounds are healing, but my mind is fighting a battle. I want to conquer that stupid trail to make it down like I have so many times. But I’m not going to. I quit that trail. At least for now.
Filed by ryanroth at April 1st, 2006 under Life