It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for another Wedneday Word link up, hosted by Debbie! This week our word is serendipitous.

One definition of serendipitous is “come upon or found by accident; fortuitous” and another is “of, relating to, or suggesting serendipity.” I love when dictionaries define adjectives that way. It’s kind of a cop out. 🙂 So what do they say, then, about serendipity? It can be “an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident” or “good fortune; luck,” So today, I’m going to tell you a story that encompasses all of those definitions. It’s a time last June when I got very, very lucky.

Back in June I had the privilege of joining Debbie on a team with members of her local Moms Run This Town for the Ragnar Trail Relay Appalachians in West Virginia. It would have been a pretty crazy weekend on its own, but we also added to it some strong storms, pouring rain, and a whole lot of mud. The multiple torrential downpours leading up to, and throughout the weekend, made for some pretty rough trail conditions. Add to that the sheer number of people running three sets of trails, and it was a downright mess.

Our MRTT team had buddied up with another team, so each of us had a partner to run with. My running buddy was Tammie, and we headed out together on our first leg that Friday afternoon. It was a 6.7 mile run that would take us around two hours to complete due to trail conditions. Early on we were running along and going through an area with a lot of boulders and a lot of shin-deep mud.

About a quarter mile past the boulder area, I realized my camera was no longer in my pack. Crap! I had been keeping it in the water bottle pouch, which had a broken bungee cord, so the camera sat loose in it. Up to this point it had never been a problem. But here I was, less than two miles into my first run of the weekend, and my camera was gone! I freaked out, and told Tammie I was going to back track a little on the trail and see if I could find it. She was so nice, and was totally okay with this. I could not believe I’d let this happen.

As I made my way back up the trail, other runners were coming by. Many of them asked if I was alright and when I said I’d lost my camera they wished me well on finding it (and probably secretly thought it was a lost cause). I got back to a spot where we had jumped off of a large boulder into a deep mud puddle, just as another runner landed in the puddle and then continued on down the trail. On a hunch, I reached down into the puddle and lo and behold there was my camera!! To this day I cannot believe I was able to find it.

I should probably also mention that my camera is shock and water proof. But this was definitely the most it had been tested. On top of surviving being left in that mud puddle, I can’t believe it somehow did not get stepped on and crushed by the other runners. That was definitely one serendipitous day, for sure.

When was a time you have experienced serendipity?

P.S. My camera now resides in a zippered pocket while I run 🙂