I went on a trail run this past Sunday as I prepare for a 30K trail race, Cradle to Grave, here in North Carolina. My legs were feeling wobbly as I started on the trail. I knew this meant that I needed to go a bit slower and pay closer attention to the trail so as not to fall.
With caution, I was enjoying my run and waved to a fellow runner who was running in the opposite direction. I was going down a set of logs steps when I gained momentum. I was feeling exhilarated. This momentum led me up another set of log steps with my legs feeling like jelly, when all of the sudden I found myself laid out on my stomach with my iPod flown to who knows where. I couldn’t fight the inevitable, a fall. Actually, there was nothing to fight. It all happened so fast. One minute I was feeling exhilarated and the next I was laid out with no recollection on how I got there.
On a beautiful Sunday morning, there I was, on the Blue Ridge Parkway flat on my stomach face down on a set of steps. As you might say, “I ate it” on this fall. In shock, I laid there for a moment doing an internal body scan then I slowly got up, a little sore and dirty, and followed up with a physical pat down. I was okay! My finger was a little jammed and I had a massive bruise a few hours later but other than that I was able to continue, with extra caution, on my run. I began to think to myself, how could I have landed so perfectly? It could have been much worse, from a busted lip to who knows what. But there I was, I fell exactly where I needed to fall.
Many life lesson come to me on my runs. I feel like that is how Mother Nature and I communicate about life. As I have been transported around the globe to land back in the US, there have been moments of thinking “what the hell am I doing?” Those thoughts then snow ball to the “am I on the wrong path?” And then it gets bigger and bigger until before you know it my typical sane, confident self has left the building.
As you could expect, I was having one of those days when I went on this particular run. Sunday, Mother Nature arrived on cue to remind me “you land right where you need to.” And I do, as I always have before with other moves/transitions.
I forgot to say that after I got up from my fall, I laughed. I laughed at myself and how petty I had been thinking about “was I on a wrong path?” Of course not, I am exactly where I need to be. I have fallen exactly where I need to fall. Here.