Sad really that It wasn’t that long ago I was close to double digits in miles.
I was running every day and felt good then all of a sudden I felt heavy and started tripping and falling down a lot during my runs. After an MRI it turns I had been stricken with tendonitis, a serious debilitating ailment that the VA completely ignored after diagnosing. It sucked and it sucks to fall running even when pushing a ten minute mile pace.
Once in queens I tripped going downhill. I saved my self by doing a ninja roll midair. I swear I flipped forward and somehow landed on my hip. Popped up and ran to the bottom of the hill and then got lost and turned around and walked home. I wasn’t in pain I just didn’t feel right. I hate when I start a run and halfway through need to stop and walk. No matter how far I have jogged it always seem like the distance back is so much farther and takes three times as long.
When I fell running down the hill I was trying out a new path. The hill was steep as fuck. Meaning it was the ultimate in steepness. As ultimate in steepness as Flushing New York can offer and I was running in sneakers then.
When I lost my balance under the Brooklyn Bridge I was running barefoot, well in those Skele-toe things and I fucked up all types of things in my foot, I like to blame this moment, but really it might have just been running itself that did the damage and not one specific run, but them all.
It was a really long run. I ran through Park Slope, Borerum hill, Downtown Brooklyn, and Dumbo, over the Manhattan Bridge through China Town and thought about running over the Brooklyn bridge which is something I would like to do some day, but missed the street I needed to run cross town on to get to the ramp. So I ended up running underneath it instead.
By underneath I mean the bridge is above me and I ran over one street across one median and then across another street and that was it.
Except I fell, well almost fell. I was the strangest thing. I tripped over a thick portion of air or something lost my balance and almost tumbled into oncoming traffic. Basically to picture this properly you need to envision a twenty foot cement thing and imagine some rando guy trying to catch his balance as he falls straight across it.
I grabbed onto a traffic cone or a wooden police divider or something like that at the last minute and narrowly avoided being killed by traffic leaving the city going to Brooklyn.
Of course this did not happen in a place like when I fell in queens.
In queens it was 5 in the morning and pitch black plus I did a ninja roll and in my head looked cool as fucking hell.
Under the Brooklyn Bridge there was a traffic cop standing just five feet away who started screaming like she was witnessing a murder as soon as I started to fall and she was standing next to a construction worker.
When I stopped myself just short of dying I looked over at her and mimed, whew, and smiled before taking off running again with my surest stride.
After me I heard her yell, “Hey.”
I ignored her and continued to run against the light. I am pretty sure she wanted to lecture me or give me a ticket for jaywalking.
I ran from a cop. I am such a criminal.
Probably not, but at least I didn’t have to stop and stretch my calves.
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