Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Dangerous Distractions

This week, I have taken pictures of myself in two of three shirts I've accumulated from running the Heather Hurd 5K in 2011-2013.  I've worn all three.  The race is in honor of a young woman whose life was taken by a distracted driver.  

This morning, I learned (again!) that distracted running can be dangerous.  

I was only supposed to run three miles.  Just as I passed a mile, I tripped.  ON what?  I don't know.  I hit my right palm. the outside of my left pinky and back of my left hand, my right shoulder, my upper lip, and knocked the wind out of myself.  Knocking the wind out of myself was the scariest part.  It took probably about 20 seconds for me to regain my breathing.  

Now, I'm okay and I can laugh about the silliness of falling.

But it taught me that trying to worry about work while running is nothing but a recipe for disaster.

In this case, I only injured myself.  But if there had been cars around distracted running could have been just as dangerous as distracted walking that contributes to many pedestrian-vehicle accidents on my university's medical campus.  The number of accidents is sufficient that despite the number of smart people at the schools of medicine, nursing, and public health they need to put up signs all over the place reminding pedestrians not to put themselves at risk.  They have a whole committee for this issue.

Perhaps I need a sign for myself--"leave the work issues at the door and just think about the run"--when I got out to run.  

A great slogan?  Not really.  Just common sense.

With the small number of miles, I just moved a little way down the road to county road 650 N, still in Worthington, IN.  

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