The danger and grace of training for a half-marathon

I like to think I jog at a pretty good clip - enough to slow down when I come to a blind corner on the sidewalk and avoid barreling over some poor old Chinese woman. I usually don't, however, run at about 20 mph with several tons of steal hanging around me on suspenders like a clown outfit. If I did, I'd probably take it a little easy rolling down blind alleyways, too. To each his own, I guess.
As I jogged up to the end of such a blind alleyway today, several tons of metal came rolling out at about 20 mph. What happened next, I'll always regret was not filmed. As the sound of rubber screeching on pavement shot down the alley, I subconsciously did a hand-plant-on-hood to ass-slide-across-hood combo and nailed the dismount about a foot in front of the license plate. It felt so fluid and choreographed, except for the mangled alternate universe me that was laid out in the street. I realized the usual reaction to something like this might be to yell at the driver or panic about what could have been. Somewhere between seeing the driver's horror through the windshield, though, and being incredibly impressed with myself, I jogged on. I should get a special medal or something on my race bib.