The first rule of jogging

Today I learned something new. What I learned was that the first rule of jogging is that you must always, always look where you're going. As you can see from the picture above, I didn't.

I was out in the park with Laszlo, trying to loosen up my muscles after my last session with James had left me feeling a bit stiff (serves me right for not stretching right afterwards). James and I were due to go out on Clapham Common tomorrow morning to see just how far I could jog when I put my mind to it – the goal was half an hour.

So, there I was, being a good girl, pootling round the park, not really looking where I was going – in fact, actively looking over my shoulder because Lasz had stopped to play with a Jack Russell – when I tripped over a shallow hole in the path and went sprawling.

I've badly skinned the palm of my left hand, but that's nothing compared to my left knee – I've got a deep, deep gash just below my knee cap. It's really quite gory-looking in real life. I was meant to go out for a review dinner tonight, to Lindsay House. I was really looking forward to it, but I've got a sneaking suspicion Mark may come home in half an hour and insist I go to hospital and get my leg stitched up.

I'm also not convinced that I'm going to make the half-hour run tomorrow.

Drat, drat and double drat.

Still, if I ever wanted proof that journalism was the right career move for me, the fact that my first thought on getting home was that I'd better get a picture of the injury to post on the blog seems to provide ample confirmation.