I thought I would an incident that happened this weekend so that you can learn from my experience. I was at mile 12 of a 20 mile run, preparing for the Seattle Marathon. I was running down the side walk, approaching an intersection. A cross walk lead from the side walk to an island in the intersection, where the button lived that you press to get the walk signal. As I approached the cross walk, I noticed a car coming from my right side. It was stopped since it had a red light. I was watching that car and stepped into the cross walk, when it happened.
Within about .0001 seconds, I saw white, realized it was a car, and then whack, got hit and was on the ground. I sat up and could not believe what just happened. I looked up and the car had stopped and the young girl got out to see if I was okay. I was so freaked out I couldn’t even speak. I sat there for a minute and gathered my thoughts and then decided to see what was hurt. Amazingly, I felt fine. I stood up, stretched out, and nothing seemed to hurt. I had a bloody elbow, but that was it. The girl was still running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I just asked her for her contact information, got it, and then continued on with my run.
I ran 5 more miles in a weird state of mind. All I could think about was how close I had just come to serious injury or death. It totally overwhelmed me. I haven’t been able to take my mind off the fact that if the timing would have been just a little different, and she hit me head on, I would be a very different person. I considered this a wake up call of magnitude proportions. The next day, I was a little sore. I have bruises on my shoulder, elbow, butt, hip and both knees, but I’m fine.
Anyway, lesson learned for both me and the driver of the car (Brianna). I could tell that she was almost as freaked out as I was. I was wearing head phones and knew that I had not looked to my left before stepping into the cross walk. We were both being stupid and we happened to be at the same place at the same time (When Stupids Collide). I’m sure, or at least I hope, that she will be more careful in the future, because I know I will be.
Of course, when I told my wife about this, her first comment was: “see, I told you to get your will made up”.