Falling over like a boss

I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve fallen over multiple times while running. Yes it sounds ridiculous, but just like the chances of Lady Gaga’s next single sucking, it’s bound to happen. How many times do you see a baby take their first steps, only to collapse into a hilarious crumpling mess? How many times do you see a fat kid waddle over to the playground, only to trip in hysterical fashion, going head over turkey? Heaps!

The fact they are kids and I’m not doesn’t matter, the fact is, if you do something enough times, things are bound to happen to you. If you enter the lottery each week for your entire life, aside from the fact you’ve mindlessly wasted so much your hard earned cash, you have more chance to win it than the person who buys a ticket just once in their life. If you spend an hour a day staring at the ocean, you have more chance seeing a whale than the next person who just glances at it (let’s not get technical with whale migration seasons here). Hell, I’d go as far as saying that if Lady Gaga keeps releasing songs, eventually (key word being eventually) instead of being cheesy repetitive dribble, she might actually fluke one that is able to be listened to without wanting to stab yourself in the ears. In my case, the fact is, if you spend enough time running, you are bound to fall over here and there occasionally.

Off the top of my head I can count four occasions. The first, being the near death experience of being eaten by furious red ants near Yarrawarrah, which I posted about previously.

The third time, was during a freezing cold February day in Dublin, Ontario, when the ice on the road was thick and the snowy conditions that day made it worse. As I was running, I peered through the snow thick snow hitting me in the face and made out the headlights of an oncoming car approaching. I attempted to cross to the other side of the road, only to sprawl clumsily flat out on my stomach, belly sliding for a good distance before coming to a less than elegant halt in the slush. Making matters worse was the fact the oncoming car A) saw this embarrassment take place, B) didn’t stop or slow down to check on me and C) sprayed a heap more icy water in my direction as I lay there feeling cold, wet and sorry for myself. Did they think I was just making a snow angel in the middle of the road? Jerk. Was probably Lady Gaga driving that car.

The fourth time was just the other week, when I discovered some nice trails running through a conservation area not far from home. This new trail cut through a grassy area beside a cornfield. Finding it impossible to watch my every step as my feet hit the long green grass I looked up to get my bearings. My hit-and-hope method, was more hit than hope, and stepping into a nearly knee-deep Groundhog hole, I was quickly turned upside and rattled, on my stomach sprawled out. At least it wasn’t snowing this time.

The second time turned into more of a story. It was a Sunday in September 2011 leading up to the Sydney Marathon. It was a couple of weeks away and I knew I needed to get one more long run in at race pace, and then I could taper my mileage until the event. I planned to do a 32-34km out-and-back run down the Old Princes Hwy south of Sydney. Now the Princes Hwy is a major highway running down the coast from Sydney to Melbourne (and further onto Port Augusta, South Australia for the record), however the OLD Princes Hwy is just as it sounds. Old. It has lost most of its use, as the newer road is faster, straighter, and bypasses a lot of things the older version doesn’t. With a few exceptions, the only reason people would need to drive on it, is for a scenic drive, or if they are lost.

Anyway, enough of the highway history lesson. I was enjoying my run along the relatively quiet, narrow and winding Old Princes Hwy and keeping the pace I was aiming for. Things were going great guns. Until I was nearing the 16km turn around point when all of sudden a little bump in the gravel threw me off balance and I went hurtling forward towards the ground. I put my hands out in front of me and the sharp gravel pieces did their worst. Even throwing my hands out was not enough to save the harsh meeting between the ground and my face. Yep…I faceplanted.

I sat up, inspecting my palms and noticing the dark blood already pooling in them while the gravel-ranging in size from a grain of sand to a small sharp marble-littered my hands and forearms. I touched my cheek…bleeding too. “What a knob” I thought, quite correctly.

I sat there for a little longer, wondering how best to handle the situation. No phone, no transport. Guess I just have to suck it up and run the 16km home. As I dusted myself off and starting limping in the direction I had come from, the blood starting circulating a little faster and in turn, my hands started bleeding more. I tried to stop it by pressing my palms against my shirt, turning it from a nice white colour to deep red where my mitts where. It slowed the flow temporarily, and as I kept running, I kept my hands on my stomach, which made me look like a chuckling Santa clutching my belly. Well, a skinnier version of Santa, and without his costume on. And without reindeers (otherwise I’d just ride home on them). Come to think about it, I didn’t look much like Santa at all, but my hands were on my belly nonetheless. To be honest the last thing I felt like doing while my palms and face was throbbing was running another 16kms home after just doing that.

The normally low traffic on the road was even lower being a Sunday, with cars driving past at a rate of about 1 per 5-10 minutes. When I finally heard a car coming from behind me I wondered if this was my ticket out of this horrid run. Continuing to jog slowly, I stuck my thumb out as a hitch hiker would, put on a hopeful smile and twisted my head a little, to see if the car was interested in picking me up.

The wind in my hair from the car as it passed me suggested otherwise. A few minutes later I heard another car and tried the same method to no avail. Same with the third attempt.

I thought about this failing strategy, and realised how stupid it was. Of course they don’t want to pick a runner up-they’ll be thinking “just keep going you lazy slob, you are meant to be running, man up you baby-you’re not going to get any fitter if I pick you up”.

Hmmm. I had to change plans. I know! When I hear a car, I’ll stop running, turn around, and look like an actual hitchhiker-that should work! So that’s what I did. First attempt-unsuccessful. Second attempt-unsuccessful. What the hell? It was at this point I had a good hard look at myself (both physically and proverbially) and realised the copious amount of blood on my shirt, arms, hands and I presumed, my face. I looked like I had just murdered a kangaroo and eaten it’s flesh and drank it’s blood. If drivers were unsure about picking up a hitchhiking runner, they sure as hell weren’t going to pick up one covered in blood.

I put my head back down, and continued running home, knowing the only way I was getting there was on my own two feet. Until, finally, luck was on my side in the most remarkable way. Up ahead of me I noticed a car, but not any old car-it was my Dad’s car.

My luck was finally about to change. I’ll get Dad to drop me home-sweet! As the big fella drove towards me, I waved my hands in the air, flagging him down. And then, my confidence turned to heartbreak…he gave me a wave as if to say “G’day mate” and kept going on his way. I turned and watched as his car disappeared south into the distance.

“Are you serious?” I thought to myself. Apparently so.

The good news was that my luck was about to change, just a little later than I expected. And that came in the form of the field my Dad was driving towards happened to be closed. Which meant that within ten minutes Dad was heading back toward my direction, and this time he actually stopped.

“What happened to you?!” he said, as he noticed the blood all over my clothes, arms and face.

My reply was about as extended as I could make it considering I was so over the past two hour run “Stacked it. Tried to get you to stop before, cheers for that.”

“Oh I thought you were just waving, I didn’t see the blood”.

I didn’t really mind about too much else at that point, I was just happy to be in a vehicle heading home as my hands were still throbbing in pain, and I was keen to start digging the gravel out of them. We drove up the road and I was home 10 minutes later. Ironically, all of this happened on Father’s Day.

So there you have the four times I’ve hit the deck while running. And considering I’m not planning on stopping running anytime soon, I’m sure I’ll have more to come. In fact, I can almost guarantee the next one will be before Lady Gaga finally releases a decent song.

 

The aftermath of the faceplant...and I wondered why no one would pick me up!

 

I know how ya feel buddy

 

Steven Bradbury and his Olympic Gold medal thinks people falling over is awesome

 

 

Winter = Running like a mouse

Yesterday was the first snow of the season here in Clinton, Ontario. And Mother Nature decided not to ease us into this by just dropping a few little snowflakes on the ground, but rather to bring the house and dump an ungodly amount on day 1.

Being an Australian who rarely sees the stuff, it’s still kind of a novelty. Now instead of the usual distractions available to me (TV, internet, food) while I’m meant to be studying, there was a new one on the list-staring out the window. It’s like I’m a kid in the 1930’s-I find myself just staring out the window, watching the white stuff fall from the sky and accumulate on the ground. I don’t know what that has to do with a kid in the 1930’s…probably nothing…but regardless, I am sure kids have been doing it for centuries (well at least as far back as we invented windows to stare out of).

The worst part about all of this was that I’d scheduled a run in for yesterday. The fact Canadian winters are 5000% colder than Australian winters, I decided that slipping around on freshly fallen snow and freezing my tits off for an hour was pretty undesirable. More undesirable than a boring treadmill run at the gym? Yep. That’s what it had come to…for once, I was itching to run on a treadmill.

Treadmill running to me is still running, but something’s not right. It’s like a Diet Coke version of running. There are no trails to discover, no trees to run under, no poop to step in, no anything. It’s the same thing over and over and over again. Ok so maybe no poop to step in is a good thing, but I’d rather run that risk running over various poop-covered terrain than running in a tedious poop-free indoor environment.

I slipped, slided and nearly crashed the car in the snow drove myself to the gym and instead of finding myself feeling slightly out of place in the weights area with the boys, I found myself still feeling slightly out of place going there solely for the treadmill with the girls.

As I started pounding the pavement (rubber?) I stared directly in front of me. Not at an ever changing environment with trees, or fields, or animals, but at the same thing. Out the window that separates the gym from the hockey rink at the YMCA. Every few minutes another parent would drop their kid off to hockey training and look through the window to see a sexy sweaty man (me) boring myself slowly to death on this treadmill. I can only imagine the looks I was getting, were the same looks mice get as one wanders the pet store and sees them running fruitlessly on their little mouse wheel. The difference was no one was making fun of my tail I had access to many other avenues of enjoyment (TV, internet) whereas the mice in the pet store, the mouse wheel is the top of the entertainment food chain. I guess I was starting to feel better about myself after all.

Anyway after what I guessed was 10kms on the treadmill (it was measured in miles, so my calculation of 6.2 miles was bang on-thank you nerdy genes!) I stepped away and left the gym. On my way out I said to the girl at the desk “well I guess I’ll see you next time it snows”. Her reply was disheartening…”We’ll see you tomorrow then”. Mother Nature 1, Nick 0.

 

I should probably get talking to the gym manager about perhaps changing this one to a regular treadmill

 

Or you are a turtle without a watch

 

 

Perhaps the most awesome use of treadmills ever. Note: You get strange looks when you attempt to recreate this at the gym by yourself.

 

The time when I ran across an entire country

Yep it might sound like a big claim, but it is true…I actually did this. “Champion effort!” you might think… “What a hero!” one might cry… “You are extremely handsome and good looking!” another might add. Well, they are all very true and very nice things to say, but I might explain myself before we start declaring it something it is not. In fact, I’ll start with a short list of what it wasn’t so we don’t get ahead of ourselves…it wasn’t any of the big ones:

Russia (upwards of 12,000kms
Canada (over 6,000kms)
Australia (4,000kms)

To be honest, it wasn’t your average sized country:

Colombia (1,900kms)
Spain (1,300kms)
France (1,100kms)

It wasn’t even what you’d call a small one:

Belgium (350kms)
Fiji (200kms)
Luxembourg (80kms)

In fact, out of a list of the 249 countries and dependencies on the planet, the vast, wide, never ending land I was about to cross, comes in at number 248 on the list…

MONACO! A whopping 4kms from end to end

And for all of those people who think I set the bar low, I did not stoop the level of doing the very last one on the list right? That would be the miniscule Vatican City. Although a mere two weeks after visiting Monaco I would in fact jog around the circumference of that one for good measure, but that’s not the point.

While backpacking across Europe in 2012, I was camped out in Nice, in the south of France for a few days. As timing would have it, I arrived the week when both the Cannes Film Festival and the prestigious F1 Monaco Grand Prix were on nearby. After exploring Cannes for celebrities with minor success on the Wednesday, (if seeing Cuba Gooding Jr hop into his fully-sick-bro-souped-up-fancy-car and rip around the streets like he’s the best thing since sliced bread counts) I knew I had to check out Monaco. And considering all of Nice, Monaco and surrounding areas were completely booked out over the weekend due to the race on Sunday, I decided I’d try and buy scalped tickets to the practice session on the Thursday. Upon entering Monaco by bus, I set off for the race area and secured my tickets for later that afternoon from a large German man named Torstein who was selling all sorts of things as discreetly as a large German man can. I handed over my 40 Euros and goal one was accomplished. Goal two was a little different to what most people had probably planned for themselves in Monaco that week. I’d packed my running gear for the day, and done a after a little Google Maps researching, knew how to get to the most western border of Monaco. It was roughly 1 kilometre away, so I started to trot it out (a warm up if you will). Once I found the sign notifying me I’d reached France, I turned around and took my first steps back into Monaco and didn’t look back (except when I was crossing the road-I’m all up on my road safety skills).

Now from my Map Researching skills (which are nearly as tight as my road safety skills-I’m a real catch) I thought I could more or less follow the main road, and my measly 4km journey would be leisurely jogged while taking in the sights and completed in about 20 minutes or so. During any other week it probably could have been. The fact that a large majority of roads were closed due to the Grand Prix been on, there were more barricades, road blocks, scaffolding, security officials and crowds than you could poke a stick at. And as a general rule, I don’t poke sticks at security guards, so that wouldn’t have helped me anyway. So detour after detour I would be diverted off the road, and down one hundred odd steep winding steps, dodging crowds, then once on the lower road a little further along I’d be diverted back UP some more steps (back up to the road I was originally on). For anyone that’s been to Monaco, they’ll agree it’s got a lot of elevation for a small chunk of land-and I was feeling it firsthand.

I even got to one point where an official instructed me in broken English, that I could either turn around, or go into the train station. Like a boss, into the train station I went, looked for Exit/Sortie signs, and found that I’d need to catch the lift several floors up to get back up on the escarpment. The feeling that I was “out on a run” was quickly dissipating, considering I was sharing a lift with eight other people while elevator music is playing over the PA for a couple of minutes…it certainly wasn’t your typical “run”.

Darting out of the lift I continued along the main road, at this point away from the main hoopla but still close enough to hear the near-deafening sound of the lower tier race cars zoom around the Grand Prix track nearby over the sound of my Ipod headphones.

Half an hour later or so (I guess all the detours, lifts and crowds slowed me down) I found myself next to a sign similar to the one I had started out at, stating that I had officially reached France, and in turn, run from west to east across the entire length of Monaco.

I’ve read reports of people running across countries, continents and even world runs. The feeling of elation they get at the end must be one of an indescribable nature. That invincible, I-can-do-anything feeling that just makes all the hard work worth it. My feeling, on the other hand, was pretty describable…summed up it would be “I just feel like a hotdog and beer and want to watch the Grand Prix”. Pretty underwhelming. But then again, I’d only run a paltry 4kms in the same amount of time as you could watched an episode of the Simpsons and had barely worked up a sweat. Guess that’s what you get when you pick the second smallest country in the world to run across! To say it was a “challenge” would be a big stretch, considering all the other runs I’ve done, but being a Map-nerd, it was pretty fun and a strange little anomaly.

But that underwhelming sense stuck in my gut got a little shot of confidence when I realised I was stuck standing on the eastern border of Monaco, and considering most things-including the race track-were on the west side, I had to run back. I would run the entire length of a country twice in one day! Guinness world records here we come! So off I trotted back to where I began, checking out the sights of the massive cruise ships in the bay and some of the richest property in the world as I went. Interestingly, I didn’t pass the train station or the lift on the way back, and seemed to take an entirely different route, which was nice, but made me wonder how I could get lost in the second smallest country in the world. Shortly afterwards I arrived back at the race area, but decided to keep going the extra 1km or so to the western border to make it official…I’d just run across Monaco twice. 

Feeling better that my initial 4km run had turned into about a 10km run, I got changed out my running gear, headed to the race area in time to grab a beer and a baguette (it wasn’t the hot dog I longed for but was the best I could do in these parts) and see the start of the Monaco Grand Prix practice round, and was blown away at the sheer power, speed and sound of these mechanical beasts. Seeing Mark Webber taking the corners like the pro he is was infinitely better than seeing Cuba Gooding Jr’s pride and his terrible pimp mobile...just like Mark would kick Cuba’s arse in a race, I felt like I kicked Monaco’s arse that day too.

 

Gotta love a good map. Race area was near La Condamine

The start of the epic, epic 30 minute journey

 

Standard snap overlooking Monte Carlo

 

 

 

Me demonstrating the length of Monaco with my arm span. Double the length of my arms and you are close

 

 

A little further away from the crowds, looking over the Mediterranean

 

 

 

When I shouted "Go Webber!" he must have heard me...he would win the main race on Sunday three days later. Onya mate!

 

Just as impressive as the cars were, the boats opposite the track were too. Clearly only for disgustingly rich people-especially the one with it's own freakin helipad. 

 

 

 

The time I ended up naked on the side of the road while out for a run

I’m sorry for the visuals so early on. I know the side of the road isn’t always the most eye-catching or pleasant thing to visualise but, to share the story properly all details must be shared.

I’ll set the scene…picture a typical Sydney stinking hot and dry Sunday in mid-January with the temperatures well into the 30s. Most people would be happy going to the beach, or watching the cricket inside their air-conditioned house. Although I spent a lot of time at work, as it was BridgeClimb’s peak season, our Melbourne to Sydney Run concept was about two months old, and I was increasing training, month by month. In my days off between work and general summer shenanigans I managed over 250kms in training in January.

Perhaps one of more peculiar of those kilometres was about to take place on this day though.

I had planned a 30km run from Heathcote to Cronulla and back to Sutherland. I threw a $10 note in my pocket in case of emergency (emergency being code word for food, and food being code word for Maccas), put my earphones in my ears, grabbed a water bottle for the road and headed out.

All was going well, and after 7kms, getting past Engadine, instead of running on the shoulder of the Princes Hwy, I had the slightly nicer option of stepping up off the road and following a neat little dirt trail, flanked by gum trees on either side, but still only a few metres off the road, running parallel to it for about a kilometre. Any excuse to get an extra few metres gap between myself and from the cars zipping by at 90kph sounded like the safer choice, or so I thought…

With a new visual stimulus in the form of the gum trees, I didn’t happen to notice that a little further down this narrow track there would be a thick Orb Weaved spider’s web stretching from tree to tree right across the track, about five feet in the air. Needless to say, within seconds of crashing through the web, strands covering my face, neck and chest, I began flailing, grabbing at my face with my free hand trying my best to get the sticky web off me while continuing to run. Looking down to inspect my shirt, I noticed the spider on my chest, who seemed to be making its way up to my neck. The flailing quickly turned to swatting, which turned into pure panic and with my focus having to be split between staying upright on my ever-running feet or flicking this big spider as far as possible, I guess the fact that I absolutely wiped out and ended up lying on my back in the dirt (with the spider now nowhere to be seen) means that I chose the latter. That was the safer choice, or so I thought…

I’ve taken a tumble a few times during my running days. And as old clumsy Grandpa style as that sentence sounds, I guess the more you run, the more chance you have of falling, and although I’ll generally be up on my feet within a matter of 10 seconds or so, you’re a bit rattled, you want to dust yourself off and check that everything is alright before getting up. That was the safer choice, or so I thought…

As I lay there, within about two seconds my body told my brain that the ground beneath me wasn’t flat, and that I was lying on a distinct and rather large mound. Within about five seconds, my body told my brain that my skin was tingling. Within about 8 seconds, as I lifted my neck and checked myself out, my eyes told my brain “ummm…body is a freaking moron, we’re lying on an ant hill and that tingling sensation is us being covered in hundreds of red ants!!!!”

“SSSSSS**********@@@@@@@TTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!”

As I freaked out and jumped quickly to my feet, the ants freaked out and just starting biting at whatever this fleshy thing was they were now aboard (I can’t actually confirm if the ants were in fact “freaking out” as their facial expressions are so tiny and I couldn’t tell, and I had other important things to worry about…maybe they were just having a bad day or were hungry? I haven’t consulted National Geographic on this but I’m guessing them freaking out is the most logical explanation).

The pain from each bite was INTENSE! And the worst part was they were biting me EVERYWHERE! It was unlike any other hurt I’ve experienced before. REM thought they had it right when they sung “Everybody Hurts”. No. That’s not true. It should have been called “You haven’t felt hurt until you have hundreds of red ants covering your body biting the crap out of you”. A catchier title, and more scientifically accurate.

I didn’t know whether to run, to stand still or to jump up and down like a maniac. And to be honest, with my brain going at 100mph I wouldn’t be able to recall just which one I did. Although looking back at the comical GPS data (below) you can be the judge yourself.

In any case, simply flicking the ants wasn’t working-they wouldn’t budge-their vice-like pincers were so big and had such a good grip flicking them just seemed to enrage them more. I had to literally squeeze them one by one to eradicate each one. Seeing that I was losing this battle, I decided the best way to get rid of a good number of these six legged demons was to whip my shirt off. Without hesitation I threw it as far as I could. I continued bouncing around in pain, battling away, just a few metres from the road, now shirtless. Before too long I had most of my arms and upper body cleared. The battle was swinging in my favour until all of a sudden and with the worst bite of all, the immediate thought in my brain was “HOLY HELL THAT ONE BIT MY NUT!”

The profanities yelled that day were countless, but at this stage, none of that really mattered. All that really mattered was that my privates were becoming a red ant buffet and that is what I would happily classify as “not cool”. Just as my shirt had been whipped away, off came my running shorts. The fact that the shorts have built-in underwear meant that I was now completely butt naked (minus the running shoes) jumping up and down, trying to kill each of these little critters. As cars whizzed by, I’m sure that the majority of them kept their eyes on the road and had a normal, pleasant day without seeing any strangers in the nude in their peripheral vision by the gum tress. Unfortunately I know for a fact that at least two people didn’t have their eyes on the road when a series of gleeful honks came my way as they passed my sorry naked butt.

After five minutes of pure mayhem, once I had rid myself of every single last one of those damn red ants, I had to wander over to my shorts, and decided before putting them back on to inspect each and every square inch of the fabric, so I didn’t get any nasty surprises when I put them back on. I’m not sure which would have been stranger sight to a passing car- seeing a naked man jumping up and down as if he is doing a tribal dance, or seeing a naked man lifting and inspecting running shorts so closely like he was some Neanderthal who had never seen clothes before.

After inspecting my shirt, and pulling countless ants from it, I put that back on safely, and then had to find my Ipod which had been flicked away in the trauma, and my water bottle which was a good ten metres down the track. My emergency ten dollars was nowhere to found and I deemed it a causality. The next person to find that 10 bucks will have no idea how it escaped my possession, and I doubt they will want to.

I continued the run, stepping down off the track and back onto the road. Cars flying by me at 90 kph seemed like a better alternative to what had just happened. That was the safer choice, and this time I knew it.

That night was spent Googling remedies for ant bite pain, as my lower back in particular was peppered in bites and when turning up for work the following day, I had to be put on “light duties” for two days because I couldn’t wear my climb belt! I guess the ants and spider combo won this round!

I guess the moral to the story is “don’t jump to conclusions about naked men jumping up and down like a constipated gorilla on the side of the road”. A good life motto for anyone, and would be even catchier as an REM song title.

 

The GPS data showing me "freaking out" rather than running in a straight line. Bloody ants

 

Pretty evident to tell where I fell victim to the oldest trick in the book-the ol' "spider web/ant mound" one-two punch.

 

 

Orb Weavers-not so bad when they are on you. Definitely bad when they are on you

 If still saying no to animal cruelty when one of these are biting you in the nads, you need to give your head a shake