Inevitability

2018 was the year when I fell four times on runs. The first was a pre-dawn fall in the Domain; a vehicle came up behind me with lights on and I moved to the verge, my own shadow making me oblivious about the drain I was about to put my foot in. That was interesting because I was fine apart from a bit of a graze at the time, but my knee swelled up a few hours later at work. Then there were the two minor falls on daytime long runs: one I was crossing a road while fiddling with my waist pouch and looking out for traffic; the middle of the road had a raised section which I clipped my foot on and had me in a heap in the middle as concerned motorists stopped on either side, but not grazes to show for it. Then less than a week later, my foot hit the base of a sign on a Great North Road footpath sending me again into the pavement but with some lost skin. Then what was the most catastrophic of the series, I was waiting for the Omaha Half to begin and jumped up onto a boardwalk only for my feet to slip out from under me and a heavy fall on my buttocks. I completed the run but the delayed effects of the fall put me out of running for some time; it took almost two months to get back to it. It was freakishly high to wonder whether I should really be out there running at all. Yet in all the years around it, 2016-2017 and 2019-2022, I only had one other fall, a wipe-out on gravel at a sharp corner in an event. 

The forces of probability over a habitual action are worthy of us all to consider, just like speeding on a windy road, even one that you know, could eventually end in disaster. As a runner, and morning runner at that, there are many factors that raise the probability of a fall. There is visibility, which, even with the waistlamp I bought after the first fall in 2018, cannot illuminate every threat in a timely way. Little unevenness on the path is enough to catch a shoe and unbalance. Even with illumination, you can be dazzled by headlights, twilight can cause less visibility than in darkness, and rain or fog on glasses or in the lightbeam are dangers. The moisture factor boggles the mind: I don't know if it is shoe technology or sheer intuitive skill that means the many thousand footfalls on wet footpaths do not regularly result in slips. However, three of the four 2018 falls happened in broad daylight, some surfaces are perilous and distractions can lead to misfooting.

On the 29 July this year I had the fall that broke five straight years without hitting the ground. It was inevitable, thinking of the above, that I'd have another moment of grazed hands, but this felt almost unavoidable on a practical level: I entered a trap. On one of my regular pre-dawn loops I turned onto Portage Road crossing it earlier than usual. I would usually take a newer footpath on the outside by bus-stops but it hadn't yet started and traffic was coming, so I ran onto an older, inner footpath that passed businesses. It was a bit cracked and a copse of trees were to its side blocking street light illumination but I charged down it with only my own light. It was going to be tricky because I'd have a sharp right-hand turn at the end (so not to run onto the road) but not something I hadn't managed before. As I approached the turn my lamp revealed late that the end of the footpath was a stretch of shiny mud, but it was not like I hadn't run in mud before. I slowed and took it with caution but as soon as my first foot hit the mud it slide out and my momentum took me face first to the pavement, my hands fortunately bracing the impact. There was a half second of fright and then a half second to rise and run, and another half second for the burn on palms to register. I was still five kilometres from home and still had work ahead. The result once at home and in the light was several wounds, three on my hands, both elbows and a knee. 

I ran the loop again in broad daylight and I can only conclude that running it if ten normal runners went through that path in the dark, at least five of them would come to grief. It allayed some worries; I knew it just had my number and now I had its.