Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later and I’m actually surprised that it didn’t happen sooner. I fell. Twice. The good thing was, neither fall was a face plant and I did not get injured. And, I also realized that the good thing about being in the back of the pack is, only the person in front of you gets to witness these events. I am embarrassed to say that I apparently squeal like a little school girl when I fall. Both times I let out this high-pitched EEEEE! It also happened when I almost had fall #3. EEEEE! Seriously folks?! So not cool.

We ran for about 3 hours on Saturday at Loch Raven and reached about 12 – 12.5 miles, which included some road running in the beginning and in the end. As usual, it was beautiful. This is the part I love about trail running (not that I’m totally loving trail running yet).

I had to add this quote from the “Zen of Running: the path to completeness” to this picture.

The trails were frozen which was a nice change from the mud, but I didn’t realize that the tire ruts from the bikes would make running on the trails a balancing act. I was definitely rolling in and out of the tire ruts but given the choice, I’d much rather run on frozen tire ruts than run in the mud.

There were long stretches of the trail that were relatively flat and it was during those stretches, I took a spill. I got to talking with my running buddy for the day and stopped paying attention. BAM! First fall I landed on my hands and I was grateful that I had on gloves, then 20 minutes later, BA-BAM! I fell again, this time rolling on my right side. I guess it didn’t help that I did a lot of hill work and leg work at the gym.

There is an art to falling gracefully. I bet you $5 that I will master this art by the end of the training. But seriously, there are right ways to fall so that you minimize the damage. I found these two videos on YouTube about the proper way to fall. I have to say, I wasn’t too far off from falling correctly the second time! Anyway, check out these two videos and let me know what you think!

In this first video, the part about rolling forward happens around minute 2:33. I’m assuming that in trail running, forward falling is the most common type of fall. I guess I’ll find out otherwise if I end up on my ass-end.

In this second video, at about 1:06 is what I sort of looked like during my second fall…with the EEEE screech, of course. And I didn’t roll all the way over. Okay, so I looked nothing like that.

(P.S. I didn’t forget about the eggs and rice…I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow)