So Tuesday was Day 2 of Week 10 in my training – an easy 4 miler.  Right away my legs felt heavy – almost as heavy as my heart, as I had just returned the day before from a two week vacation full of family and friends.  As soon as I could I jumped off the Prospect Park road and onto the dirt path that runs along the pavement.  I much prefer to run on earth, however as I would soon learn, it does have its perils.  I was approaching my 2 mile turnaround point when the same rock that I have been running over now for the last two months up and tripped me.  There was no catching myself.  I was going down – hard.  And as I made my way to the dirt, my right knee landed directly on another rock strategically placed in the path of my fall by the Universe.  I couldn’t believe it.  I immediately began to panic because I was certain that that was it.  My race was over, and my heart was broken.  All of those miles – some 250 miles – for nothing!    I began to cry.  The pain was so bad that I couldn’t breathe, but boy could I cry, and not because of the physical pain, but for the loss of my marathon.  I still had hold of my phone, which survived the fall other than being packed with dirt.  My right arm was scraped up, my left palm was on fire, but my hip and my knee (the most precious of joints to a runner)!  Man my knee was no good – cut, bruised, and swelling by the second.

After about two minutes of devastation I slowly stood up.  I gently put weight on my right leg and it didn’t crumble.  Okay, I thought, I’m okay, I can walk.  I’m not out of this thing just yet.  I began to limp my way home, but with a job beginning in two hours, that wasn’t going to cut it so I began to trot hobble back.  I actually ended up completing my 4 miler.

Short deviation here.  I have to mention that not one single person came over to see if I was alright!  I mean, was it possible that this incredibly embarrassing moment somehow went unwitnessed?  I sure hope so.  I sure hope that that’s it and that people aren’t really just a**holes!

It’s so awkward to fall as an adult.  Kids fall all of the time, right?  Like multiple times a day!  But when a grown person (who’s not drunk) falls to the ground, it’s something!  I remember reassuring myself on the way home that what I’d done was just like my old all-star softball days, where we slid and dove all of the time!  Oh, sorry, you might have the wrong idea about the kind of softball I played.  My team, as 10 year olds, could slide into a standing position or head first into home an arm’s distance right of the plate to slip a left hand under a tag, scoring a run.  I digress…  See, it wasn’t that bad – banged up my knee, bruised my hip, but no real internal damage, I self-diagnosed.

Then I started to think about why I had tripped and fallen.  As a kabbalist, one must think this way.  Perhaps that minor incident had diverted a more serious one that would have occurred if I hadn’t bit it where I did, and it was my good karma that saved me.  My fall also could have transpired in order to cleanse some kind of negativity on my part.  Pain, kabbalistically, is a good thing – it washes you clean of bad karma.  So actually this was a really positive incident, because at the same time my good karma was protecting me, any bad was being removed!

Here’s another angle.  I jumped off the main road, right, to run on a little side path and I fell and got hurt.  Well if I’m going to be honest about this over-analyzation, I was going down a different kind of path that has led to injury and heartache time and time again.  The Universe sometimes is forced to take extreme measures to wake us up.  It was like, “Hey lady!  Why are you taking this detour, AGAIN?  Haven’t you learned?  Was I not clear enough the last fifteen times?  No?  Okay then, here you go – this will be you in a couple of days if you continue to travel this route.  Maybe then I will have your attention, and this will all make sense.” – Universe.  And it would have been 100% correct on that – it was a perfect moment of foreshadowing.   Noted Universe.

There is also this saying, When you take things for granted, the things you are granted get taken.  It could be that I went out on this 4 miler not really appreciating how wonderful it was just to be able to run.  Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself for having to leave my family, and so, was just going through the motions.  How often do we do that in life, right?  Go through the motions – at our jobs, in our relationships, during our workouts.  What if suddenly though our job was taken away, or our partner, or we became ill and could no longer exercise?  We’d be devastated.  It’s generally the things we love the most that we neglect to give the proper appreciation and respect to, and then when we lose them we realize our wrongdoing, but by then it is too late.  Well, I by no means want to lose my marathon, and if I ever couldn’t run again, I would certainly be lost, so no more running careless.  And again, duly noted on applying that message to all aspects of life.  Be grateful.  It could all be gone in a second.

Here’s another thing I’ve learned from the experience.  It sucks to run while something hurts.  And outside of the exceptionally long runs where everything starts to ache anyway after a certain point, I have pretty much trained injury-free.  And I really miss that!  You see?  We just don’t know what we’ve got until its gone!  Another one!  But this kind of thing also makes us appreciate the good times – the pain free times so much more, right?  After the rain, the sun shines so much brighter!

So as you can see my dear reader, a lot can be learned from misfortune.  And long distance running and life share many parallels.  In this lifetime, you will fall down.  You will feel pain.  In doing so you are going to learn painful lessons.  But the most important thing is that you get back up, you dust yourself off, and you just – keep – going.  Yes, you are a little wounded but wiser, and so very much stronger.

Take good care babes, of everything and everyone that you hold dear to your heart.  Love them like you will lose them.

Cheers,

Vino Bambina

Lastly, but most importantly I am doing all of this for a little guy battling Epidermolysis Bullosa.  His name is Lane and my pain doesn’t even compare to his.  My intention is to raise awareness and support to this cause.  You can find his story just before this one:  Butterfly Baby; Lane’s Story.  My goal is to raise $2500 by running the NYC Marathon come November 1st.  If you would like for me to send you good vibes and run my race so very grateful for you, or if you’d like to make a difference for so many little ones out there born with this rare and heart-breaking illness, please click here to make a donation.  My endless gratitude.