I've been running/jogging on city sidewalks for decades - even as a kid to school - and I can count on one hand the number of times that I took a splat but it was always a clean fall on the palms of my hands with maybe a sore shoulder along with that. But last month when I thought the sidewalk was even going forward I took a nasty fall, my hands taking some of it but ended up also with my face hitting the concrete. The side of my face was scraped and I had a gauche by my cheekbone and the inside of my upper lip was bleeding. I thank G-d that that I didn't hit my forehead, my teeth, nose or eye. I went to the emergency room and they gave me a tetanus shot, stitched me and cleaned me up. Upon reading up on joggers falling, I see that it is quite common for joggers to talk about how they avoid falls or deal with them and after speaking with people about it I learned that 2 of my neighbors and 1 person from my shul also had a similar experience
When I went back to the place where I fell I saw that the concrete was even on one side but raised on the other side. Whenever I fell in the past it was bc of raised concrete levels on the sidewalk. Now I do fast walking which is almost as good cardio-wise and even if it wasn’t, I'm not taking the risk of jogging on city sidewalks anymore. The trip hazards are everywhere and you practically have to watch your every stride to see that you're not going to get snagged on one of them. Also, it is important not to jog fast bc the momentum of your body going forward in an uncontrolled fall is quite dangerous! When I see someone running on a sidewalk with their hands in their pockets, (even when it’s not on a cold day) I try to get their attention to let them know that it’s not safe for them to do so because in the event of a fall you need your hands to be very ready to brace yourself and if your hands are in your pocket you’re diminishing your precious time of a fraction of a second to react. At first, I didn’t want to disclose to people that I fell, out of embarrassment, but when I thought that I could possibly save someone else the horror of a nasty fall I felt that talking about it is all the more important!
So to sum up - while jogging or walking fast, monitor the sidewalk continually but if jogging, make it a rather slow stride. Of course you also have to monitor the distant view - that you don't bump into someone and to see that some yuckel isn't rolling up on you with a bicycle illegally on the sidewalk and they don’t even honor to ride on the right side but bicyclists riding like meshuganes is a whole other discussion. So please jog or walk fast with the my pointers in mind.
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