Dear Devoted Followers and Idolizers,
As you all have surely heard by now, there was an incident at approximately 4:31pm on Tuesday as I went for a run at Keehner Park in West Chester, Ohio. There is an area where a small creek passes through a large slab of rock, and the incident left me lying horizontally on the aforementioned rock. Some details about the occurrence have been misconstrued by the media, and I would like to set the record straight.
First and foremost, let me be clear: I did not “fall” or “eat shit” as some others have claimed. The incident can only be classified as “slipping” or “taking a spill” and the classification of this event as a fall are extremely hurtful and misleading. I have never fallen while running.
To set the record straight, I’d like to paint the picture of the spill I took. The creek that passes over the rock is approximately 4 feet wide. As I approached the creek, I sized it up and was confident that I could clear it without issue. I jumped the creek and (comfortably) made it across and landed with my left foot on the dry part of the rock. Although dry, this part of the rock is certainly withered by the nearby water, so it’s unexpectedly slick for such a dry rock. As my shoe landed on this slippery - but not wet – rock, the traction on the bottom of the shoe was unable to grip the surface properly, causing my foot (with all of my weight landing on it) to slide out from under me, and my body began to turn sideways like a windmill until I made a complete right angle and my entire right side landed upon the rock. Some might say the right side of my body “crashed” into the rock, but I’d call it more of a “landing”. It’s honestly not even completely accurate to say that I slipped in this instance, as it was really the shoe that slipped, and I was merely a limp body getting flown through the air after that. I certainly did not “fall”.
Unfortunately, there was a witness of my incident, who was seemed intent on convincing the public that I “bit it” and other phrases of the like, but I’m here to set the record straight that this woman cannot be trusted. The witness, a woman in her mid 30s, was sitting peacefully on a dry part of the unfathomably slippery rock as I approached the part where the creek passes over it. As I approached - I must have been moving at such a speed that she heard me coming - she looked my way and we exchanged smiles. The woman then turned back around and resumed her peaceful viewing of the creek. The “witness” did not turn back around until she seemingly heard the sound of my entire right side landing (not crashing) onto the rock. You see, this woman saw my approach, and she saw me laying on the rock, but given the angle of her neck, it would’ve been physically impossible for her to see the process of how I ended up on the rock. And while I understand that given the context of a wide creek and a man on the ground, she may have assumed I fell, it simply is not the case, and it’s irresponsible of her to try and portray it as such.
Unfortunately, the lies of this witness don’t stop there. In her recanting of the story, she has reportedly told people that I hurriedly got up and ran away – embarrassed by my fall. Obviously, since I didn’t fall, I was not embarrassed, and this suggestion is ridiculous. You see, I was in the middle of a really well paced 3 miles, and I was within a quarter mile of finishing. The reason that I quickly got up and appeared nervous and ran off was not because of embarrassment, but rather because I wanted to finish these 3 miles with as little interruption as possible.
If you haven’t been able to ascertain by now, the issue in this incident was not a lack of coordination or athleticism on my part, but quite the opposite. I was simply running too quickly and jumping too far for my shoes to be able to handle, and my body was sadly collateral damage in the slipping of a shoe.
As for my body, some have pointed to the bruising along the right side of my leg as evidence that I “fell hard” – another laughable notion. Yes, there is a lot of bruising surface area down my right leg, but none of the bruising itself is that deep. Heck, none of it is even purple. If I had one spot that was very purple and deep, one could certainly conclude that I “fell hard” and had a bruise as a result, but my situation - lots of light red bruises all the way down my leg - suggests that I softly hit the ground with several parts of my leg as a result of a slip - an entirely different outcome than the media would like you to believe.
I hate that it had to come to this, but I could not afford to let the public conversation continue to slander my name and athletic ability. I, Zach Payne, have never fallen while running, and refuse to let some untrustworthy witness convince the world otherwise. Thank you for allowing me to set the record straight.
Sincerely,
A runner with lots of small bruises but no huge ones who definitely took a spill but did not fall