Last Tuesday was the first semi off-road run of the year and it would have been a joyful one if I hadn’t planted my knee and the heels of my hands into the gravel path that separated the tarmac road from the soft, bouncy grass. Thirty seconds earlier and I possibly could have stopped the fall, or at the least come away less cut up. Thirty seconds later and there would have barely been a scratch on me. But for some unknown reason – and that’s always the part that shakes you – I toppled forward, past the point of readjustment, down to the stony ground. To the ground where a thousand tiny grains shredded my skin.
Okay, a slight exaggeration but my knee did become dramatically studded with red rivulets by the time I got back to the club and my hands and elbows stung. Luckily, I was back marking a group and running with two top women (Karen and Tania), who generously walk/jogged with me all the way back to the club, blithely curtailing their own plans to make sure I was fine. Also luckily, I’d brought a change of clothes and could shower at the club and fish out all the stones sooner rather than later.
But I haven’t run since then. Partly to allow my knee to dry up, partly because it was Easter and we’ve been busy with the family, and partly because I’ve been a bit psychologically winded by the small escapade. Nothing was damaged in a long-term way, just a few cuts and bruises, but my fall came just a few days after Anne fell, after not considering the lip of the patio door as she walked back into the kitchen. She was also fine in the end, but because her bones are more fragile than usual, from the steroids she’s had to take over the years, and because her hands can’t open from her rheumatoid arthritis, it’s always a bit of scare if it happens.
I don’t often think about aging, despite the fact that my hair is going grey, I need to wear my glasses most of the time and I have to have the telly on loud. I’m still certain that I can better my 5K time and one day get below five hours on the marathon – granted, not the highest bar. Even more than me, one of my sisters is knocking out some of her best times ever in her races, and she is almost sixty. Therefore, at fifty-two there is plenty more that I can get out of myself, and I am determined to keep pushing, gently, to see what I’m capable of.
Yet, for a moment or two while I sat on the ground to catch my breath again, I felt I had a lucky escape. What if my hands hadn’t been strong enough and my face had taken a dive into the stones? What if I’d landed awkwardly and twisted/broken something. Such thoughts wouldn’t have really crossed my mind when I was younger.
I felt puzzled as to why I fell in the first place, given the flatness of the ground and the fact that it was only about fifteen minutes into the run and that I was going slowly – at this point I know that Nigel, our chair and a running coach would say that going slowly was my problem. He’s probably right in this case. It was likely that I wasn’t lifting my feet very high and then a stone must have inhibited my stride and then …
Of course I’ll be running again. The Tuesday night’s club run is coming up, and there’s some intervals on Thursday and possibly Friday if my legs can manage two sessions in a row. Saturday’s parkrun, and then the Llangollen Fell race on Sunday. A fell race is not the kind of thing a person would do if they feared falling down. A fell race is not normally something I would do – not because of falling, but because I’m virtually always with the back sweeper. This race was sold to me as being more trail than fell – which means that there are potentially more sections where I might be able to run as opposed to walking.
Ironically, the fells and the trail runs are probably places where my chances of falling are less because I am concentrating so hard on the terrain. I’m always (sorry Nigel) going to go slowly, on the downhill as well as the uphill, but I am picking up my feet and knowing exactly (roughly) where my foot is going to land. And falling when there is an understandable reason for falling doesn’t feel as bad, if you know what I mean.
What my fall has made me realise is that my strength training will continue, and will be non-negotiable. As women, we’re much more likely to break bones in older age than men, due to the hormonal drops in our systems. Warding off osteoporosis and being able to get up again (because I’m sure this won’t be my last fall) is more important than it has ever been.
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