Three Hundred Ninety

December 24, 2015
7.92 Miles in 1:15:48
Mood: Danger and panic converging from all sides, plus being lured by sandwiches for the homeless.
Soundtrack: O.A.R. "All Sides" / Family and Friends "XOXO"

This run was a rough one on me. It started innocently enough, as I began at the zoo and rumbled through the parking lots past the museum and on to 17th Street. 17th is a gloriously beautiful lane filled with majestic old trees and historic old homes and treacherous old sidewalks. About a mile and a half into this run one of those jagged sidewalk edges clipped my foot, and before I could do anything about it, I was sprawling forward and down. I landed on my hands and my right quad. Unfortunately, my Fitbit Zip was positioned in my right pocked directly between the cement and my quadriceps. The impact was direct on the muscle, and with the Fitbit in the way, I was envisioning a pedometer shaped bruise would quickly be forming on my leg. I sat in the grass and gathered myself for a moment, after making sure no one had seen my moment of grace, and then pulled myself back up and started back down 17th a bit further.

I ran about a quarter of a mile before I rifled through my right pocket. It was at this moment that I realized that although I had begun my run with my fitbit, my car key, my credit card and my drivers license in that pocket, the only thing that still remained was the Fitbit. I had a mild stroke at this point. Then I did a little bit of crisis management reasoning. Yes, my car key, license and credit card were no longer in my possession. This was a problem, but I figured that the most reasonable assumption to make was that they fell out of my pocket when I fell off my feet. It had only been a few minutes, so I figured that it was likely no one had come along and absconded with three important pieces of my life just yet, and if I hurried, I could keep it that way. I sprinted back over the quarter mile that I had just traversed, and when I got back to when I flopped onto the sidewalk, I found my license, and then just a few feet from that my credit card and key. I was 3 for 3 on recovered items, and feeling pretty good.

It was at about this point I realized just how sore my quad was feeling as a result of taking the spill. I kept moving, but about this point in the run I took several long walks interrupting my running, and gave some serious consideration to bagging the entire endeavor and just heading back to the car. I decided against it, as the month is quickly drawing to a close, and I still had a good chunk of mileage to go for my 100 mile goal. I pushed through, and although I wasn't at 100%, I got into a decent groove.

It was about at this time that I reached into my pocket and finally took a look at my Fitbit. The LCD screen was demolished. It may have hurt my leg, but my leg killed it. I was a little bummed that my cool gizmo had bitten the dust and hurt me in the process, but I kept moving.

I headed towards Downtown Denver, and made a loop encompassing the Capitol Building, Civic Center Park, and the City and County Building. In Civic Center Park there was a large line that had built up, and as I got closer, I realized that someone was serving submarine sandwiches to the homeless. When I ran right past the table where the sandwiches were set up, I had to admit that they smelled delicious. In my sweaty and frayed running hat and oversized hoodie I probably could have passed for homeless. Although the sandwiches DID smell good, I wasn't quite ready to take food out of the mouths of homeless people, so I continued on.

The photo for this run came from when I was passing the Basillica of the Immaculate Inception on Colfax. Construction started in 1902 and it was finished in 1911, this is the most famous Catholic place of worship in Denver, and is one of only a few cathedrals in the United States where a Pope has presided over a mass. (Pope John Paul II in 1993.) The cathedral looked really beautiful against the blue Christmas Eve sky, and I took several pictures of it. I thought this one turned out quite nicely, it really is a gorgeous building.

The final moment of note happened when I was only about a mile away from the end of my run. I was getting ready to enter City Park and head back to my car in the Denver Zoo parking garage. Crossing the street in the opposite direction was a girl who I would guess was her twenties with two energetic little dogs. I tried to give her a wide berth, as she didn't appear to be in complete control of this pooches, but apparently I didn't give her quite enough room, because just as we were adjacent to each other one of her animals jumped up on me and snagged my thigh with it's claw. She jerked it back and continued on her way. I continued to the other side of the street and then realized that I was in some major pain on my right leg...the same leg I had fallen on earlier in the run. This was a bad outing for my right leg. I finished up the last mile and made it to my car. When I pulled up my pant leg, I uncovered a bloody mess. There was a sizable gash in my leg thanks to that wonder mutt. Frankly, I'm just thankful I survived my Christmas Eve run.