On running...and pushing too hard.

So I'm out for my usual morning run today, and after a few miles in the hot sun, I come upon this neat little decorative chain fence that's blocking part of the sidewalk in my path. Now back in the old days, I'd have just jumped over that chain just because it was there, even though I could easily walk around it. And of course the temptation to do just that quickly becomes overpowering. But being older and wise now, I stop and think about it.

If I do this wrong and hook a foot on the top of it, I'm going to take a nasty fall.

On the other hand, if I do this right, I'm going to look GOOD. And there's people watching.

I weigh the costs, benefits and risk. Hell, I've fallen before. It won't be the end of the world. I go for it.

I run at it, leap, and clear the fence, and I look so damned good with my nice shiny running foot catching the sun. Yeah, I got this. I land on the other side, coming down squarely on my running foot, which takes the impact beautifully and bounces me another foot or so back in the air...

And then one of the worst charley horse muscle cramps that I've ever had tears through that leg. Apparently I overtaxed or overstreched something. The pain quickly ratchets up past "Damn, that hurts" and hits "Oh sweet mother of God, make it STOP!"

With no "real" foot on that leg and no distal attachment for the calf muscle, I can't just flex my leg and stretch it out. I have to drop to the ground and tear the foot off so that I can try to massage the muscle knot out.

Now I'm not looking quite so cool. And it took a few minutes to make it go away so that I could reasemble everything and commence to running again. So much for advanced athltetics. I guess that my appearance on Ninja Warrior is going to have to wait a bit longer.

Then to add insult to injury, as I ran past a family out walking, I heard their little boy ask his dad if I was a Transformer.

yeah, I got your "transformer", kid. C'mere...we'll transform you into a football and go for a field goal.