My momma used to say ‘you better be able to laugh at yourself, cause others certainly will.’ And she didn’t mean it in the ‘get yourself some confidence and have a spine and who cares what the world thinks’ if you knew my kind-hearted, loving, gentle momma she meant it in the ‘life is funny and laughing is fun and just lighten up – life is way, way, way too short to be taking yourself so seriously’…. I have found laughter to be healing, provide peace and disarm even the grumpiest of people at times.

‘A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.” –John Cleese.

I’m a BIG fan of laughter. And I swear the older I get the more I have to laugh at myself in regards to my what-the-hell-happened-to-my-memory or no-filter-thinking or crappola eyesight. Having the privilege of living into my 50’s — there is simply some funny shit that happens with age.

So with that set-up… Let me tell you about a recent trail episode.

It was cold and still icey in places from a recent snow/thaw. My running friend and I are doing this local 2.5 mile climb up a place I love to run called Cline Buttes. It’s a fire road/bike trails with a 1,000 foot hill. We tackle it each week; on the same day and keep track of our times. We’re aiming to be fast badasses and we’re working on it one step at a time. Right now I’m less ‘fast badass’ and more ‘just don’t stop hiking until you hit the top no matter how slow you go’. (Side-note; you can in fact go so slow that your trusty and beloved GPS watch asks if you still want to be recording this ‘run’ or are you done? Fact.)

Anyway, we focus on hiking up this hill to get to the gate. There’s a gate to a utility road/cell tower enclosure at the top; we hike up as hard as we can, tap the gate, turnaround and run back down. Some version of that is the weekly goal. We’re trying to hike harder and run faster. Simple. HARD as hell, but simple and rewarding to gauge progress each week.

Running back down, every so often on the downhill one of us has to stop and pee. Trail running? No problem. Check for other peeps. Hike 10 feet off. Face your bum away from potential oncoming traffic. Squat. Resume running. SIMPLE.

This time descending off the hill I decide that if I take any more running steps I’m going to pee my pants. There’s no waiting this one out until I get back home. So I tell my partner ‘Hey… I know we’re on a bit of a sidehill, but I really have to pee. Gonna climb over that discarded corrugated/culvert pipe over there on the side of the road and be right back.’ It seemed like as good a place to ‘hide’ as possible given the hill, potential bike traffic that sneaks up on you. Plus I am a SUPER speedy pee-er. Like – peeing on trail has to be close to a super power for me. I’m good. Really good. But I digress.

Remember I said it was icy?And we’re on a fairly steep side hill? Right?

As I step off the road and I am on a downhill sloped patch, JUST ABOUT to straddle the discarded culvert pipe which is at least 3 feet round… My running partner YELLS ‘BETSY. WILD ANIMALS!’

I stop mid-straddle, whip around to see what in the holy hell she is yelling about…

That quick turn threw me off balance on the hill. My only-planted foot slips on ice.

I go ass-over-tea-kettle over the frozen, slippery pipe. Like, in my mind, it was almost competitive gymnasts quality mid-air, somersault.

A really convenient and soft patch of unmelted snow breaks my downhill fall and keeps me from rolling the 2.4 miles downhill to my car.

I am so startled to find myself on the ground, I pee my pants.

I hop up as quick as I can trying to do a simultaneous pat down to make sure I’m not broken or bleeding AND keep from falling back down the steep side hill AND I’m also frantically looking around for a tyrannosaurus rex or cougar or polar bear.

I turn to my friend who has a totally shocked look on her face and I’m staring at her, mouth soundlessly agape and waving my arms around wildly like ‘WHAT ANIMALS? DO WE HAVE TO RUN FOR OUR LIVES?” and she says ‘uh… I thought maybe an animal had taken up residence in that discarded pipe and you should be careful not to disturb them.’

We stared at each other for about 5 seconds. I said something really smooth like ‘I PISSED MYSELF’. And we both started to laugh.

We laughed so hard that she finally sat on the ground. The next day my ribs were sore from laughing so hard.

We laughed for probably a full 5 minutes. At some point she asks ‘are you OK?’ and it was WELL after we’d laughed and tried to stop laughing multiple times. I said ‘yeah. I’m good. (sarcastic font) Thanks for asking me NOW.’ That launched another fit of laughter.

The worst that happened was I peed my pants. Not the first nor the last time that’s gonna happen. And to be honest, it’s why I wear exclusively black tights for running. I learned that lesson EARLY on; with black leggings/tights no one can EVER tell. 🙂

The best part? A deep and happily exhausting belly laugh with a friend and another great trail story to tell.

Laughter is in fact good medicine. (Even the Mayo Clinic says so. )