I suddenly felt the dreaded sensation of my foot beginning to slip out from under me as I ran down a slick little hill this morning. It’s one of my favorite spots on the trail. There’s a bit of texture to the land, a creek at the bottom of the hill, trees, leaves, roots. I’ve slipped and slid there before, but momentum and good luck have always caught me just in time.
That’s the one…the little fellow all the way on the left.
This time, though, in that super-clear, instant flash of thinking and planning for oncoming disaster, I was certain I was going down.
Until my pinky toe reached out, clawed its way into the mud and saved me. That tiniest of toes peeled itself away from the others and gave me just enough traction for an instant that I continued bounding down to the bottom of the hill. I crossed the bridge and launched myself up the other side of the ravine.
Disaster averted.
A cyclists unclips, throws out a leg and hangs on. This is what I imagine my toe thought it was doing.
All content © Tim LaBarge 2011