Hit by a parked car

I usually go running at night after the kids are in bed—but only at the track where it is warm, well-lit, and dry. Thursdays are the most difficult day to go running because Andrew gets home just in time to have scriptures and prayer as a family before we tuck the girls in and hope they go to sleep. Then I'm out the door.

Last night I was waiting for Wendy, my running partner, to pick me up so we could go to the track and I was chatting to Andrew while I waited since I hadn't seen him all day. He said something about the weather.

"It must be pretty warm out," I casually remarked. "It's raining."

"Yeah, it's raining," he agreed, "But it's cold."

Wendy drove up and I said goodbye to Andrew and blew kisses to Rachel, who was still awake, and headed out the door. The deck was wet with rain but it wasn't icy so I figured the driveway wouldn't be icy, either. 

I was wrong.

The rain had frozen on our driveway, transforming it into natural luge run. The second I stepped off the deck my feet went out from under me. Ordinarily this would have been your run-of-the-mill embarrassing fall but we happen to live at the top of a hill, ergo our driveway is undeniably steep. So my feet went out from under me and I kept on going. 

I was absolutely zooming down the driveway. For a moment I regained my footing and started cruising down the driveway, snowboard-style, but then I hit a bump and started coasting on my rear end.

As I got closer and closer to Wendy's car—she has seven kids so she drives a huge SUV—I began to wonder how exactly I was going to stop myself before hitting her vehicle. I was going fast enough that hitting anything would have hurt, I'm sure. I'm not practiced enough in skeleton to know how to steer myself but I was desperately clawing at the ice, anyway, trying to direct my velocitous* path away from one of eminent collision. 

My attempts were in vain.

As a last-ditch effort I grabbed onto her bumper with one of my hands while the rest of my body flew under her car. At last my crazy ride was over. 

I pulled myself out from under her car and gingerly made my way over to the passenger door, leaning on the car for support. I hopped inside and Wendy and I dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. 

"My husband just did that on our driveway...but our driveway is flat. How'd you stop yourself?"

"I grabbed onto your bumper."

"Wow. I'm going to drive so carefully. I can't believe how icy it is!"

Then we went on to run seven miles.

I'm a little sore today but I'm not sure if it's from running or from falling (aside from a few scraped knuckles I don't have any obvious injury from the driveway incident).

I wish there had been a camera to capture the fall in action. I'm sure my face would have been priceless.

*Not a word; but perhaps it should be.