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Trail Rash

The trail got me today.  But while I did not escape un-harmed, thankfully, I did make it through un-injured.  Read on!

The run started out great – as has become usual for Thursdays, I met Tyler and Ankur (Lukas was a no-show) at Peet’s in Brentwood at 5:30am. From Peet’s we ran San Vicente to 26th Street, over to Sunset, up Mandeville, over to Westridge Road and down Bayliss/Queensferry to the Sullivan Canyon trailhead.  That gave us 5.5 miles, including some serious climbing in before we met up with the Coyotes. This week the Coyote run was Sullivan Canyon, so our group’s run was through the Canyon, up to the ridge and down the ridge fire road to Bobsled Trail and back through the end of the Canyon to the start. 14.5 miles total.

Running with Ankur means running fast and nearly redlining just to keep him in sight. I kept within general spitting distance for the first 8 miles and then he pulled away. We re-grouped at the ridge and then soon after starting the descent, he was gone again. I was working hard and the run was going great.

Over13 miles done – just the steep, slippery, loose dirt Bobsled descent (it’s not called “Bobsled” for nothing) and a bit of the Canyon to go.

Sim had joined up with me near the end of the Ridge fireroad and I was just behind him going down Bobsled, when something caught something and I was flying through the air and then skidding on the dirt. I felt like I was falling for a long time.  Sim says he didn’t hear me scream but he did see a cloud of dust explode behind him before coming back to see what happened. I stayed down for a few extra seconds to do a systems check. Luckily, other than a torn shirt, a cut on my shoulder, a bleeding stigmata on my left palm:

bloody right knuckles:

and a scraped up right knee and lower leg:

I seemed fine. I was dirty and bloody but it could have been much much worse!

I finished the run, got a little sympathy and cleaned up the wounds (all of the above photos are post-clean up).

Now, it just stings.  Neosporin and ice are the prescription for the evening.  Fingers crossed that it’s not worse tomorrow morning.

No question, it was worth it for a great Thursday run!