That's where the similarities ended. I only got about 2 miles down the road when I got distracted by the electric window beside me acting up and all of a sudden that tree was right in my windscreen and a split second later I was beside the road in a ditch. All that happened on a perfectly straight piece of road that I had driven down hundreds of times before, it was not icy and there was nobody else around. I'm still at a loss to explain how it had happened, from looking at the marks on the ground later that day I think that the car must have turned abruptly, almost flipped, as soon as the left hand wheel had lost contact with the tarmac. It was over so quickly that by the time I realised something had happened it was already over. Thankfully I had not gone very fast, there was no real impact and the airbag had not deployed. I walked away from it completely unharmed, just a bit shaken. The marathon was not going to happen, that much was clear right away.
The advantage of crashing 2 miles from home was that I could ring Niamh and she was there 5 minutes later to pick me up. It took a while to organise someone to pull the car out of the ditch, which itself took half an hour and did a lot more damage to the car than the actual accident itself. I will get confirmation on Monday but I will be absolutely amazed if it's anything but a complete write-off. The advantage of driving an ancient car is that the financial loss isn't too bad but I need a new car pretty damn straight away, which is a hassle I could do without, really. And it had passed its NCT not even 3 weeks ago with flying colours!
I did eventually get to run at half past two in the afternoon and hammered 10 miles, far too fast for the legs at my present stage of fitness (almost 30 seconds per mile faster than last week) but this one was to clear the head rather than for the legs.
Shit happens. Nobody got hurt and I had narrowly avoided being another mark in the roads safety statistics, so in the great scheme of things this ended up okay.
- 5 Feb
- 10 miles, 1:23:24, 8:20 pace, HR 137
- 6 Feb
- 8 miles, 1:07:57, 8:30 pace, HR 133
- 7 Feb
- 10 miles, 1:10:19, 7:02 pace, HR 157
- incl. 8 miles @ 6:49 pace, HR 161
glad you're walking away unharmed anyway
ReplyDeleteBlimey. Good to hear you were unhurt !
ReplyDeleteJeez Thomas you had a lucky escape. Freak accident by the sounds of it. Maybe you should stay closer to home to get your marathon distance training runs in ;) Glad to hear you're ok and I can so understand the fast paced 10 miler.
ReplyDeleteVery happy you are ok Thomas, time to drop those long arduous trips for what are training runs in effect, the benefits are dubious versus the effort I think, just some friendly advice, stay safe now and best wishes.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are ok Thomas!!
ReplyDeleteOh boy that's one sobering split second mistake. Really glad your are intact.
ReplyDeletePhew, happy you're ok...
ReplyDeleteThat was close, it's easy to get distracted. I think there's a stat somewhere that say's a large percentage of accidents happen close to home! You got in a fast 10 miles though, might benefit you more somewhere (Ballycotton?).
ReplyDeleteGlad you're okay. And very pleased to read it was the distraction of a dodgy window, not you sending a text message at the wheel ;-) Shows how much concentration is needed when driving/riding.
ReplyDelete