Forums >General Running>Describing Your Worst Falls ....
I am now 64 years old and have been running since 1974. Over the years I have taken some nasty spills usually when I was zoned out and not paying too much attention to the terrain I was running on or failing to pick up my feet adequately. Each time I swear to myself as I slowly pick myself up and continue my trot that this will never happen again. My most serious falls have happened when I have tripped on sidewalks which have been lifted by old tree roots and I have miss stepped and tripped. On one occasion with temperatures in the low 20's I was fine till I got home and noticed a severe cut on my chin. Later as my face warmed up I could not stop the bleeding and had to visit our local emergi care outlet for suturing. I usually run alone so I usually just pick myself up and continue my run hoping no one noticed. I would like to hear from others about their tripping or falling experiences while running. There is no finish line!
I cant really describe a fall that was worse than another, but what I can tell you is that I usually fall 2 times per year and 3 times in a good year....usually I get to shuffling and kick something....or when stepping up a curb, I don't step quite high enough.....
Champions are made when no one is watching
I have a great one! So I was 23 years old, NCAA eligibility finished and looking for people to run with. Well, of course full of myself I find the fastest marathoner in New England and convince him to let me tag along on a 20 miler in December. 10 miles in we go right around a corner onto a 20 foot long stretch of ice and I go down on my side hard. Full of adrenaline being 10 miles into a 20 mile run with a 2:14 guy I get right back up and feel fine. We finish the run and I barely even remembered that I fell.
That afternoon my side hurt and the next day it still hurt. I thought I had some sort of side stitch. Then I remembered falling on my side and it turned out that I broke a rib. It hurt for a month! That was 2009 and by far the worst fall I have had in ten years of running in the winter.
Queen of 3rd Place
First-ever trail run at Newberry Volcanic National Monument in Oregon. I was also a new runner, running at 7000ft elevation around a lake, really had no business running up there on trails. Seven miles in, on a downhill, my toe caught an embedded rock and I went flying. My knee and elbow landed on sharp rocks and I was a bloody, dirty mess with a 3 in gash above my knee and a 2 in gash just below my elbow. Still have the scars. The best part, though, is that I got up and started loudly swearing up a storm, ranting about how running sucks, not realizing that there were two older gentlemen on a fishing boat nearby who were shocked and staring at me as I went into my diatribe. Oops, sorry gents!
Ex runner
Five miles into my first (and so far, only) 50 miler. It started thunderstorming at the start of the race, and there had been a bad storm the previous day, too. I had gotten to the race after barely sleeping on account of being without power. Washed out trails and mud were the name of the game.
I slid down into the mud and rock and twisted the freaking hell out of my knee. I started limping almost immediately. Probably should have dropped, but I'm an idiot. I changed my shoes at the end of the first 16.something mile loop and told myself it felt better.
It didn't. After the race, I couldn't go down stairs without hopping and making liberal use of the railing for a week. Took over a month for it to feel right again.
"When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." Emil Zatopek
Probably the time my upper lip was my first point of contact with the ground. Although it was dark when I fell, I was about five miles from home, and the sun was well up by the time I was running through my neighborhood again, fat lipped and bleeding. I like to think that since that time I've developed some falling skills -- not the face! not the face! -- but it's likely all just luck.
Mmmmm...beer
I've only fallen once, and it was on a section of sidewalk that had been lifted up by a tree root, like Al. After that I stopped running on sidewalks and haven't fallen since.
-Dave
My running blog
Goals | sub-18 5k | sub-3 marathon 2:56:46!!
I dunno about falling but I was a fan of El Kabong back in the day. Good stuff.
rectumdamnnearkilledem
We have a giant Swiss cowbell we call "El Kabong." The cartoons were funny, too.
My worst fall led to a grade 2 sprain during a trail relay about 2.5 years ago. I was only a mile or so into the legs I'd committed to. I continued to run nearly 10 more miles before the day was done and that didn't do me any favors (but our team didn't have to take a DQ/DNF). That ankle is still not perfect, but in about the past 6 months I've thought that *maybe* I could run trails again. My 11 year old DS has taken to running and really likes running in the grass and is intrigued by the idea of running trails, so I might have to give it another go for his sake. He loves running and could really go far with it, so I'll do just about anything to encourage that (especially if it could land him scholarship money, ha!).
In the meantime I discovered that I'm a much better cyclist than runner (which, really, isn't saying an awful lot) and now I do a helluvalot more falling off of my mountain bike than I ever did while running...but thus far all of my wounds have been relatively superficial and short-lived. I suspect my luck will run out at some point. I am surrounded by people who have suffered major wrist injuries while mountain biking, including another RA member and a friend who has had 2 wrist/arm fractures and 3 surgeries. Ti plates seem to be the latest fashion accessory amongst my friends.
Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to
remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
~ Sarah Kay
Interval Junkie --Nobby
Running at night in South NJ against traffic on a state-highway. Somewhat blinded by oncoming headlights, I got my feet lassoed by a hub-cap wire loop. Took me down hard. Ripped up my elbow. Spent the next two hours trying to clean and bandage the wound in a cheap hotel bathroom.
Looked like a movie: where the guy on the lam has to clean a gunshot wound in the hotel. Blood and bandages everywhere.
That was fun.
2021 Goals: 50mpw 'cause there's nothing else to do
Oh roo roooo!
Running a trail race on narrow, winding, somewhat technical sections, I was waiting for the trail to open out so I could pass the gal in front of me. I pretty much knew I was following her too close....and when she zigged to avoid the 2-foot high pile of rocks that caused the trail to bend hard left, I did NOT, since I didn't see it in time. I kind of folded over the rock pile, coming up with a bloody nose, broken front tooth and both upper and lower lip diagonally cut. Yee ha! I was able to jog/walk the rest of the race (this happened about midway in a 15K). The helpful guy at the one remaining aid station kept offering me to use his car mirror to see my face. I really didn't want to!
At the finish, the first aid guy butterfly taped my lips. My biggest gripe was that I couldn't drink a beer afterwards b/c of the lip cut (I now keep a straw in my glove box for such situations). My brother, who ran the same race, was kind enough to drive home, as I felt a bit out of it once the adrenaline wore off. Once I got home, it was off to the Urgent Care for stitches in the lips. As if all this wasn't enough, later that day a big hunk of a SECOND front tooth dropped out, so we called our dentist's emergency number, as this one didn't seem like it could wait till Monday. Bless his heart, he came into the office, fixed me up, and never billed us! (said this was a policy of his, a thing he does to "give back").
Anyway, it sucked fairly hard and has made me very, very cautious on trails since....
Run Wild
I am pretty exclusively a trail runner. Falling is just kind of the game, especially this time of year when you are running mostly in the dark.. They typically fall into one of two categories the "oh that wasn't too bad" kind that just kind of phase you a little bit and the "I'm gonna go ahead and pause the Garmin. It's going to take a moment to get up from this one." kind of fall. I have roughly 2 or 3 "pause the garmin" falls a year. Fortunately I've never been seriously hurt.
jules2
Mines similar to Stadjak apart from the fact my nemesis was the carcass of a lorry tyre, took out both knees and one elbow it was last December and I'm still not 100%. I went down so quick the the guys behind me thought I'd had a heart attack.
As for bike crashes they only count when you split your helmet, Ashley holds the record so far as he split his into two within 10 minutes of first wearing it when he skidded and head butted a lamp post and what was really weird was it happened with 50 yards of where I met the tyre.
Old age is when you move from illegal to prescribed drugs.
A friend of mine rode across the state of MI without incident, only to crash and destroy her helmet while riding a short way from the finish area to nearby campground showers. She had a backpack in a SAG vehicle with her clean clothes and a 6 pack of beer. The beer made the pack heavy and that weight totally messed with her center of gravity when she took a corner too fast.