Thursday, May 24, 2012

The Steeplechase

While I enjoyed running for my high school back in the day, running in college was a little more of an--adventure. First of all, I was a mediocre runner in a lower division small college. Secondly, I was hurt a lot.

College running did, however, have its moments of entertainment. My freshman season I was trying to run the steeplechase. I wasn't terrible at it, but one rainy meet at this little school called Doane, I had an especially bad race.

After the first 3/4 lap, I was at the back of the pack and we were headed toward the first water jump. I hopped up on top of the hurdle, but when I went to jump off it, my foot slipped. Oops--I tried to make it look good and sort of rolled up back into a run. Not too bad. The next time around I slipped again. This time it was not pretty at all. I slid, face first, out onto the track. All forward momentum was halted.

From then on there was a pretty good crowd at the water jump, cheering on the last place runner (me) and (I'm sure) hoping I would crash again. Somehow I finished the race without falling again, though the next year I fell again, this time during one of my failed attempts at the 400m hurdles.

At least I didn't fall quite as bad as this girl (you really should watch the video).


This weekend I'm racing another 5k and then pacing a marathon. I've had a little bit of a cold, so I'm hoping I'll be feeling well enough to run a good 5k.


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