Hey Buddy - scrape your windshield!

Sunday morning my friend Cheryl Hurchik and I went out for an 11 mile run.   Cheryl is training for her first 1/2 Marathon which will be the Disney 1/2 on January 7th in Orlando.   She's been training really well and I know that she's going to have a great race!  

It was pretty cold (24 degrees) when we got started but at least it was light out and there was no need for our head lamps.  We started out too fast, as usual, but found a good pace by mile 3.   At around mile 4.5 we saw a pickup truck coming straight towards us.    For those of you that know our area know that we have no sidewalks anywhere to run on.    We must run on the country roads, facing on-coming traffic.  I always wear reflective gear or bright shirts/jackets.  The driver of the truck had made the decision that morning to be LAZY and CARELESS.  He choose not to take the minute to 2 minutes to scrape his windshield of frost and ice.    He made the decision that he would rather take his chances of hitting or injuring someone rather than scraping his car windshield.   I saw his truck coming straight towards us and thought that he might hit us.   I could see the 5" by 2" of clearing on his windshield from his defroster and knew that was all he could see out of.  I was really hoping that he would see us. We kept moving further and further off the road in order to avoid him.  I was concentrating so much on his driving towards us that I wasn't watching where I was running.  He did see us, fortunately before he hit us but it was too late for me.     BAM - I tripped and landed on the asphalt directly on my face!  

I'm not sure if he stopped because he saw me go down or if he heard the awful name that I called him.   But he did stop and, very shaken, he came running over to us to see if I was okay.   I wasn't sure if I was okay and he offered to go get me a cold compress since he lived a few 100 feet away. 

It's amazing how your instinct kicks in and fortunately I still had my gloves on which I immediately used to put pressure on my face.   When I finally was able to take my hands away for a moment to show Cheryl she was horrified. Yes, she is a nurse but it freaked her out.   I guess that the face bleeds profusely.

Mr. Careless soon arrived back with a cold washcloth and I asked him to call my husband.  He had to confess that he doesn't own a cell phone.   Guess what Mr. Careless....you get to drive us home....blood and all.   I could tell that he was very worried that I had a concussion and kept asking if my head hurt.  Yes.....EVERYTHING hurts.   He dropped us off across the street from my home at my friend Pam who is a nurse practitioner.   What a way for her and her family to start their Sunday morning!  Pam took one look at me and I could tell freaked too.   I guess that that's not what you expect at 7:00am at your door!   Pam switched into nursing gear and checked out my injuries.   I decided to go home and clean it up and then decide if a hospital visit was needed.

"Honey....I'm home!"  I walked into our house and yelled up to my husband that I had fallen and that it wasn't pretty.   It took him the longest time to come downstairs and then when I saw that he was carrying our rather large first aid supplies I realized why. Over the past few years we have both had our time on the pavement so we have most items that are available a clinic!   He didn't freak at all and totally went into doctor mode.....pretty good for a computer guy!

The good news from all this is that I'm extremely grateful that I didn't break anything....especially a tooth and that neither of us were hit by the truck.   I'm healing very quickly and I've been back on the computrainer and in the pool.    I haven't been out running yet since I'm still very nervous.   i guess that time will help with that too.

I'm really hoping that Mr. Careless was very shaken from this and will never be so lazy to not take the time to completely scrape his windshield again!