I believe in continuing education, so last weekend I attended a conference in Stamford, Connecticut. It was a great event where I was able to learn a lot and meet some great people.

How great? Well, on the first day we raised $24,894 to build a school in Africa. (Actually, we raised more than that throughout the weekend, but that was the amount that we’d raised in the span of a few hours.)

Once it’s built in July I’ll put some photos up if I can get any forwarded to me.

That said, the weekend was jam-packed. There wasn’t much in the way of down-time with speakers getting on stage by 7 or 8 in the morning each day and not getting done until near midnight. I haven’t taken 2 days off from running in a row since my 50 miler!

Imagine sitting on your butt for 3 days straight, book-ended by 5 or 6 hour drives between Maine and Connecticut. It’s enough to make you sore.

Which leads me into today’s warning.

On Sunday morning, I got up early enough to actually get out the door for a quick 4 miler. It had been raining over night, so while the weather was fine while I was out there the ground was a bit wet.

Now I don’t do a lot of running in downtown areas these days, so I admit that I wasn’t being careful enough.

Here’s what happened:

I was running across an intersection in a cross walk when I saw that the light changed from red to green. Thankfully, the person in the intersection was watching me, so when I stepped down on the paint in the cross walk and my legs went out from under me they knew enough not to pull over me.

There is nothing quite like falling flat on your face right in front of a car with a green light to make you feel foolish, among other things.

I got up as quick as I could and made my way to the sidewalk so I could pick the tar out of my palms and shake myself off.

Normally, you don’t have to worry about falling on city streets unless you catch a curb or there’s some sort of debris or spill that you need to run through.

After it’s been raining, though, any painted lines on the street could potentially become dangerous, especially if they had been repainted within the last year or so.

Next time that you are out running, keep in mind where your center of gravity is, especially when you are near traffic. For me, I’m glad to be home where the lines are all faded and I can spend most of my runs on the trails anyway!

Ever had a similar experience? Leave a comment in the box below and share it with us.

(Event photos courtesy of Sirena Bernal. The crosswalk photo was provided by Peds.org.)