This past weekend I was in Ohio for …..the Women of Faith Conference. Which just happened to be on the same weekend as the Columbus CapCityHalf which is the Capital City Half Marathon. It is a huge event and a great thing for all of the runners everywhere. I am not sure of what the start time was but it coincided pretty closely with the start of the Conference on Saturday morning.
I was attending the conference with my sister and my niece and we found a parking lot not too far from Nationwide Arena so we were walking on the sidewalk to get to the arena. The runners were off in the distance and we were making good time getting to our desitnation.
And then it happened. I turned my head around to look at one of those fun dancing solar flowers like I have in my own car that was in a car parked in a lot and before I knew it I was on the ground. Not totally flat out but my left food hit a part of the sidewalk that was half there and half not. My foot went sideways and I fell on my right knee. Of course I pretended like I was okay because that is what one does when one falls and makes a spectacle of oneself.
I shook it off and picked myself up with the help of my sister and we proceeded to walk on. As I walked I realized that my knee was bleeding—thank goodness for black capris. Later when I went to the bathroom I refused to look at the oozing wound (remember my aversion to blood?) and slapped 2 small bandaids on it that I had in my purse. Never mind that one was a Barbie bandaid.
I finally examined it tonight in the privacy of my own home and it is still kind of gross but hey–it could have been much worse. My foot is swollen but I can walk on it so all is well. But yes—I got a half marathon injury and I did not even run.
When we got to the street where the runners were coming it was right in front of the arena that we were going to and it was a dilemma. Several of our family members are runners and we understand how important races like this are and how times are very important. We witnessed countless people walking across the road and quite honestly being disrespectful to the runners and seriously endangering them as they had to slow down or move to avoid running into the pedestrian that was trying to cross during the middle of the race.
The police had been holding the crowd of women back from crossing and then one decided that it was okay to let people cross when they could find a space. It was scary. I was seriously concerned about the runners because they were focused on running and not dodging people crossing in front of them. People were getting upset with the 3 of us because we were not crossing and were blocking them from crossing. It was uncomfortable. We finally were able to get safely across after quite awhile without any issues but we waited until there were large gaps between runners. Given my hobbled condition I knew I wasn’t going to be able to move very fast.
But it made me sad to think that so many were being disrespectful and I wondered if I was overreacting. Being a few minutes late was not going to be the end of the world and quite honestly when I tweeted to Women of Faith they tweeted back that they were delaying the start because of traffic so we got there before the official start even with having to wait quite awhile for the runners.
The conference was great and it always reminds me of what a great world we live in that we have the freedoms that we do. Freedom to be in an arena with 10,000 women who are all free to share their beliefs. It is amazing when I think about it. 
May is here and it is gong to be so busy! Coming up this week is our Chicago Blogger trip , next week is Micah’s graduation, we have numerous trips planned and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the house showings the past 2 weekends are going to end in an offer. I am feeling pretty positive about it. How is your May shaping up?
