Ice: 1, Me: 0

March in Stockholm is a month of expectation. After 4 months of snow, there finally seems to be an end in sight. The sky gets noticably lighter every day; the temperatures hover around and then rise above freezing, if only by a couple degrees. With this inbetween weather, pedestrians are subject to the hazards of ice that melts during the day and then re-freezes at night, creating a slip 'n slide on every horizontal surface. And so it was on Saturday that I experienced first-hand what makes people tread so carefully.

I try to run every Saturday morning, and have done so through most of the winter, whether there were 3 feet of snow on the ground or sheets of ice covering the sidewalks. I've boasted about my record of falls so far - 0 - and was pretty confident I would make it through my first winter in Sweden without injury, well-balanced and fearless of the cold.

The above is a photo of the side of my thigh 3 days after my first - and hopefully only - fall of the season. Near the end of my run, as I made a slight turn, my foot fell out from under me and BAM the weight of my body slammed against the rock-hard ice. Not a pleasant feeling, to say the least. And the walk home felt more like 2 hours than 10 minutes. 

For awhile, I couldn't sit without pain, and I still can't sleep on the right side of my body, but at least it's not swollen anymore. Now I too have joined the ranks of the slow walkers, at least until spring. But I still don't plan to wait that long for my next run.