A Little Exercise Never Hurt Anyone
When Annette and I first got married I worked a late shift at my Monday through Friday job. Working odd hours causes you to do things at night that other people do during the day time, like exercising. I never liked lifting weights or running in the morning so I always did it after Annette went to bed. I usually did not start until around 11pm so if I was doing something outside no one else was around. Although I did have our dog Gunner to keep me company.
It was time for cardio and I wanted to try something different other then running. I had an old mountain bike that I had started riding again so I wanted to try riding it at night around our machine shed lot. I had one of the first LED head lamps they started selling so it was not very bright and it had a very narrow beam, but it was just enough light that I felt comfortable attempting to ride. Gunner loved it when I would come out at night, he would always start to run with me but at some point he would start doing his own thing.
I had made a few lapse and trying to power through as well as I could late at night. I came to straight shot before I would make the turn to coast down a slight slope and catch my breath. The only thing I was concentrating on was making it to the corner. I was looking straight ahead, the narrow field of view from my head lamp blocked out everything on either side of me. I can not even wrap my head around the timing of what happened next in the next three seconds.
A rabbit ran in front of me at a full speed. I even remember having the thought that Gunner must scared it, but I was not concerned that he was chasing the rabbit. When he was chased anything he would be yelping the whole time because he excited and is far from stealthy. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred that would be true, but tonight he decided to go in silent mode and he was hot on the rabbit’s trail. By the time he entered into my field of vision it was too late. I remember seeing the brown blur of Gunner’s hair running in front of me. He clipped the very leading edge of my front tire, the handle bars were ripped out of my hands. My front tire was at a right angle to the direction I was traveling, but I was still going forward.
Have you ever seen the Indian Jones movie where he shoves something in the front spokes of a motorcycle going full speed causing it to flip end over end through the air? I don’t know if that is how it looked, but that is how it felt. I was catapulted over the handlebars and was body slammed to the ground. I was laying on the ground right next to Gunner. We both laid there a second starting at either other in the eyes with the same thought, “You just came out of nowhere!” I checked him out and he was totally fine. The bike was in a desperate need of alignment, but totally fixable. I was a little sore, but all things considering in pretty good shape.
I started laughing, just picturing how it must have looked. I went inside and Annette had gotten back up so I told her about what had happen. I thought she would get a good laugh out of it but she was really unresponsive. I then realized that she was sleep walking and would not be available to talk until morning. After we got up the next morning, it was confirmed she didn’t remember a thing about the night before so I has plenty of time to polish the story up for her. “So there I was trying to make it to the last turn when out of nowhere…”
