It was bound to be one of those days from the start…
- My alarm goes off at 4 AM – I turn it off and fall back asleep – luckily for only 10 minutes.
- I’m out the door by 4:30 with an 18 mile run planned – note it’s pretty dark at that time.
- I’m not even out of our neighborhood and a neighbor backs out of his driveway, he doesn’t see me, so I have to slow down – I don’t want to freak him out or get in his way.
- I get about a mile into my run and two other neighbors are out walking their dog, but I don’t see them until I’m about 20 yards from them as it’s dark. They totally freak me out.
- By the 1 1/2 mile mark I realize I forgot my GU, but I can’t turn right around because the neighbors and the dog are out walking.
- At the 1 3/4 mile mark I see something in the road – I think it’s a cone or something. Nope – a skunk! It hisses at me as I sprint away and get within 5 yards of it.
- I turned around at the 3 mile mark and head for home – the skunk was gone.
- Run into my house after 6 miles, grab my GU.
- Run out 6 miles – repeating the same 3 I’ve already done – and turn around
- My legs are tired and struggle to make my goal times for any mile and I really fall off at the end – other than sprinting away from a skunk.
That’s not how I drew it up – more happened in the first two miles of that run than I could have imagined.
