The CRAZIEST Run of My Entire Life

Today started out fairly normal…I got up and had my cookies, then started to procrastinate my run.

During my procrastination phase, I was texting with a friend. She was telling me about another friend of ours…D.  D is a 40 something hard charging, high level corporate executive who tackles full iron man length triathlons for fun! Well it turns out D is 5 months pregnant with her first child!! I started out my run thinking  about how happy I am for D. She preoccupied my thoughts for the first few miles.

At mile three, it was time to implement my new strategy for regaining some speed. This is a highly complex, advanced strategy, so of you’re a newbie, you may not want to try it until you have some more experience.  But here it is….I’ve decided that you have to go fast if you want to go fast! So I ran speedy for my next mile and a half. Two and a half more laps around the park at a slower speed, a few stops at the water fountain, and then I turned out of the park to go home with the intention of doing my last mile (9) speedy too.

I passed the fire station, and was trying to pump myself up to do a fast mile, and wondering what I could write a blog post about when a car that was going in my same direction about 20 feet in front of me jumped the curb, crossed the side walk, ran into some crepe myrtle tree stalks, and then FLIPPED completely over!! It was completely upside down, the roof was totally crushed in, and the car impacted with an electric pole. The transformer on the top of the pole exploded twice, sparks flying everywhere!! I kept running. But faster now, toward the car. A man driving in another car who had witnessed everything yelled at me not to touch the car….it could be live. I didn’t.  I saw a lifeless arm in the car and prayed that no one was dead.  I yelled inside that we were calling for help, but that we didn’t want to touch the car. I saw movement in the car. At least one person was alive. I ran back to the man in the car who had yelled at me not to touch it..his wife was calling 911.  Then I remembered the fire station. It was about 1/10 of a mile away. A boy in a jeep took off.  For some stupid reason, so did I. Anyway, the fire engines got to the accident scene within about three minutes of the accident. By the time I got back, they already had a chain saw out to cut through the car to get to the man. It turns out there was only one person in the car…so he was alive.

I hung around for a few minutes, then feeling pretty shook up, decided to head home. I had to run through the scene to get home. Needless to say I didn’t feel up to a speedy last mile either.

The electric pole to the left was the site where the car flipped over.

When I got home, and was telling my family about the accident, we realized I would have been killed if I’d been running a bit faster in my third and fourth park laps…or if I hadn’t stopped for water.

I pray that the man will be OK. Incidents like this make you put life’s petty issues into perspective.

The chunked up grass must be where the wrecker pulled in…b/c  there was absolutely no braking when the car jumped the curb.

Today I am trying a link up for the Weekly Wrap hosted by Holly @ HoHoRuns and Tricia @ MissSippiPiddlin.   See rules here. Thank you ladies!