"Goosed" on the "Fool's" Course

First of all, I want to wish everyone running the Fool's 50K tomorrow a safe and fun run! I ventured out this morning and ran one lap of the course and threw on an extra loop of the Boston Run for a nice 18-19ish miles.

I was happy that it was cold this morning since the trail was nice and frozen. There were lots of shoe/boot prints in the frozen mud and tomorrow's cold temps should provide a fast course. I started at Happy Days and eventually made my way over to Ledges and Pine Grove. Nice quiet morning with the sun shining strong. I crossed over to Kendall Lake and was running across the dam when I noticed two canadian geese on the trail ahead of me. I started making noise in an effort to get them to wander over to the side of the trail. One goose cooperated, the other one however wanted to be difficult. It started hissing and spread its wings and started to charge at me! The goose made a lunge at me but missed as I ran by it. I had a couple of chuckles as I started up the hill on the Salt Run Trail.

As I passed by the short-loop connector, my right foot caught a root and I started to fall. I almost caught myself but started down. As I felt the gravel start to embed into my gloved hand, things started to move in slow motion. I realized that I really need to learn how to tuck and roll when I fall. I then relaxed my arms and started to roll onto my right shoulder. That worked and I found myself flat on my back with my waist propped up on my water bottles. The slow-motion mode stopped as I wondered "How did I get here?" I picked myself up and brushed off the dirt and had another laugh to myself...

The rest of the run was uneventful. Nice morning, great route, good hills! It does not get much better than the CVNP on an early saturday morning!