My big boo-boo.

I know I'm doing one blog post right after another, but I feel like this story deserves it's own post. So, my 9 year old cousin Jack is on the track club at his school. They have a race coming up and he's concerned that he won't be in good enough shape to run the race. My aunt suggested that if I could take him running twice a week we could build up his confidence so he would feel good about the upcoming race. I thought this was a great idea and that it would help me stay in shape too. So, I went and picked him up from one of his clubs this afternoon and we went on a run. We picked a destination goal that was about 1.7 km away that we were going to try and reach. I figured we would shoot high since his race is only 800 meters. We set off and actually made it all the way to our goal! He's really in good shape, but he just needs to boost his confidence a bit. We went at a pretty good pace the whole way and only had three brief stops. First, we had to stop after about 2 blocks because he was having MP3 player issues. Then, naturally, we had to stop at crosswalks and the like, but the third time we had to stop was a slightly bigger deal. You see, while we were running, the headphone jack came out of my iPod. I didn't want to stop again to put it back in so I just stuck my hand in my pocket and tried to plug it back in without having to break stride. This was slightly distracting to my overall running coordination and so when I happened to step on the tiniest of cracks in the sidewalk I did one of the more impressive face plants of my life. OK, it actually wasn't that bad. It was more of an awkward/embarrassing stumble and fall with minor scrapes on my palms and knees. I quickly rolled over on my back to compose myself, catch my breath, and make sure everything was where it should be before getting up. While Jack was busy laughing at me and watching me lay there in the dirt, he suddenly looked up and said, "Um, there are two guys running over here to help you". Uh oh. I quickly sat up so as to make sure I was no longer giving the impression that I had fallen and couldn't get up, then turned around to face these two men who were coming to my aid and realized they weren't just men who had been out walking, seen me fall, and were coming to check on me. Oh no. These were two men who had been driving down the one lane one-way street, seen me fall and subsequently not get up, stop in the middle of the road, abandon their car, and run over to help the poor little gringa who had fallen over. Meanwhile, their car is still sitting in the middle of the street with the doors wide open and blocking traffic with about 5 cars stuck behind it. I don't think I have ever seen a more concerned look on anyone's face before in my life. They didn't even care about all the traffic they had just stopped, but were only concerned with making sure I was OK. As cute and chivalrous as this was, it was also extremely embarrassing as I desperately tried to convince them I was actually fine so they could get back in their car and get traffic moving again. As soon as they had driven off, Jack and I started laughing, and laughed for the next four blocks of our run.