Thick Skin

No but seriously, I must actually have physically thick skin. At about mile 14 out of 16 this morning my foot got snagged on an unnoticeable piece of plastic binding that was laying on the sidewalk and sent me skidding on all fours across the sidewalk. At this point in my run, I was already feeling pretty tired and weak (although not awful) and when I hit the ground, the water bottle in my hand exploding everywhere, I just thought "Oh man, I'm gonna have to take the bus home and there's gonna be blood everywhere." I was wrong on both counts. Because as I laid there, staring at the sidewalk right below my nose, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I took my headphones out and there was a man, about 50, in running shorts and a tank top speaking to me in French, asking me if I was OK.
"I don't speak French... sorry..." I replied.
"Oh, you don't speak French? Are you alright? What happened to you? You trip on this thing here?" He pointed to the plastic binding with his foot.
I looked at it and laughed. Such a small, stupid, unsuspicious thing on the ground couldn't have possibly sent me flying like that. But it did, and I laughed, and then looked at my skinned palms and knees. No blood.
"You are not bleeding!" He exclaimed. "I saw you fall though!"
"Yeah... I can't believe it..." I laughed again and got up.
"Are you ok?" He asked. "Come. Walk fast. Don't slow down." He walked with me for a few minutes.
"Are you training for the marathon?" I asked him.
"Yes! I just did one hour and a half. You?"
"Yeah," I replied, "I just did about two hours.... I have only two miles left to go."
"Ohhhh, will you be ok?" He asked.
"I think so! Thank you so much for helping me!"
"Good for you! You will be great, you are young!" He replied before I took off again.

So even though it didn't come quite as I had expected it to, I think I got the morale boost that I was looking for, that I wrote about in my last post.
See, after I got up and dusted myself off and walked with this man for a minute, I suddenly had the energy to keep going. The weakness from the previously 14 miles that I had felt before my fall was gone, and the end seemed so much closer and the long run so much more doable. What I guess I am trying to say is that sometimes you have to fall before you realize how easy it is to get back up.