Goal: 3.5 miles – Reality: 2.75 miles, blood and rain. Fun night!

I left the house with the intent of running 3.5 miles today. Mapped out a new route and everything. Took off feeling good, but quickly the run went downhill. Almost immediately my mouth is bone dry, I have a stitch in my side and I’m feeling awful. CRAP! I realize I definitely didn’t drink enough water today. This is going to suck, but I keep going.

So about a mile and a half into the run, I trip over who knows what – rock on the ground? my own feet? absolutely nothing? I have no idea! – and I fall head over feet down the sidewalk along Main Street – you know the appropriately named actual MAIN street in my town. I quickly get up, dust myself of and survey the damage – nothing too bad other than a bloody knee and a bruised ego. One man sees me fall and I quickly start running and blow past him with a wave before he can say anything!

I’m still dying, dehydrated, and now bloody, so I stop to walk a minute. Which is ridiculous since I haven’t even hit 2 miles yet and I’m freaking walking now. Start running again, get to about 2 miles in and now the skies open up and it starts POURING rain. Complete and total downpour. I couldn’t even see because the water was just pouring into my eyes. Of course I’m still almost a full mile from home!

So I book it home as fast as I can – soaked, bloody, and ready to die. Only ended up with a 2.75 mile adventure today instead of 3.5 miles, but it was probably the most eventful run I’ve ever had.

The sad thing was that I didn’t continue running out of dedication. The truth is that I tried to just give up after I fell and call it a night. I completely rerouted to head toward home once I started walking, which is why I was at least headed slightly in the right direction when the rain started. But then when the rain hit so hard, all I could picture was my sorry self getting struck by lightening to really top off the events of the night, so I started running again as fast as I could because I just wanted to get myself home!

The kicker is that despite the fall, despite the walking, and despite the fact that I forgot to turn my Nike+ monitor off when I first got home so it tracked my pace as slower than it should have been – I somehow STILL managed to log my fastest mile yet according to Nike+. I don’t see how, but I had to laugh when the little, “Congratulations on your fastest mile yet!” video popped up when I logged the run. Maybe my sensor got all wacky from the rain water? Who knows.

At this point, I’m just hoping my Saturday run is a bit less exciting…

Keep on running!