Almost Died Running

Yesterday I was due for my long run of the week (these always seem to fall on a Saturday). The run was scheduled for 19.3km. This is the same run as last weekend, except this one was intended to be a time trial to estimate my finish time for the half marathon coming up in January. I was struggling to find the motivation to head out for this run, but after watching the video "Rise and Shine: Welcome to the Grind" I was determined to get out there and get it done.

This video is amazing and literally gets me out of bed some mornings.

Heading out onto the trail, my body seemed slow and tired, like I was running but my legs weren't moving. My pace was slower than normal (averaged at 6.30/km, which is normally around 6.00/km for me now) and I got an abdominal cramp at only 3km in, which slowed me to a walk.

I couldn't understand what was going on, after I had done the exact same run last week in almost identical weather and was fine.

By identical weather.. I'm talking about the cold temperature and rain.

Reflecting back now, I'm guessing it was all the early Christmas celebrations and unhealthy food that probably caused my drop in pace (nutrition and fuelling your body properly for runs is so important.. lesson learned).

Carrying on, I started to feel somewhat normal again around 6k, and the run started to go much more smoothly. I stopped at around 10km to eat some energy bloks (strawberry.. My fave!). And to also take a bridge selfie.. Duh.

Luckily the rain had slowed down.

I continued on, but this time decided to do a loop, instead of turning around and retracing my steps to home (first mistake).

Shortly past the bridge, the sidewalk stopped and I was forced to run on the shoulder for about 2km (second mistake).

The road I was on is also known to be bad for people driving way too fast (okay yeahhh, red flags, third mistake).

Luckily I was running toward traffic so I could see oncoming cars. Btw, it was broad daylight during this run..

At about 13 km in, I happened to look up just in time to see a red car swerving toward me, on the shoulder, spinning and throwing gravel everywhere. I somehow quickly jumped out of the way into the ditch (God bless adrenaline). The car noticed me (I think) last second and quickly over corrected and flew back onto the road. It all happened so quickly I'm not sure what kind of car it was, or who was driving, but I can only assume they were not paying attention to the road. Talk about wrong place at the wrong time.

After landing in the ditch, I sat there crying (seriously, almost died I was pretty shaken up), over the fact that life could have ended so quickly and so suddenly, and how much I would have missed out on. There's so much in life that I have planned to do.. The car didn't even stop. Who knows if they even would have if I had of been hit? I might have died in that ditch.

 As scary as it was, it really opened up my eyes to what's important, and all of the things in life I should be grateful for. 

It made me think about a few things:

If someone is important to you, tell them. Tell them, tell them, tell them!!

Don't take life for granted.

Say I love you.

Smile more.

Be grateful for your health.

Life's too short to be afraid of living.

And please, pay attention when you're driving - for walkers, runners, bikers, everyone. That could have ended differently.

This was one of those runs where it literally takes everything you have to not sit on the side of the road crying, and to keep going.

It's just forward.

Stay safe friends,

The Rural Runner

Ps.. I finished my run only 7 minutes slower than last week so I guess I wasn't doing all that bad after all!