Facing My Fear (Or, I Hate Nature)

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how I've been bitten by more animals than you, most notably a poisonous snake.  As a result, I am rather afraid of snakes to put it mildly.  

So, I was not happy when we came home from the grocery store, and I saw this:

("Hi. I'm in the neighborhood selling some medicinal oil that I think you'll be VERY interested in'."*)

I figured our choices were:

1. Run away and never return, living the rest of our lives in Chris' car and earning a meager but satisfying living as traveling minstrels.  Sorry, cats.  You're on your own.


2. Find a way to get the mf-ing snake off this mf-ing door.

3. Adopt a pet mongoose and/or honey badger.


Reluctantly, I chose door #2, even though that road leads to certain death.  I put on a hooded sweatshirt that was in Chris' car to cover as much exposed skin as I could.  I was pretty sure that this snake was a blacksnake, one of the many non-poisonous models, but that still didn't make me in any hurry to get chomped by it.

My heart pounding with terror, I grabbed what I thought was my best weapon -- a snow broom that I use to clean snow from our cars, and knocked the snake off the door and swept (actually it was more of a slap shot) it down into the yard.  The whole ordeal lasted about five seconds but trust me, they were a pretty terrifying five terrifying seconds and I felt much more macho than I actually am, afterward. It also took about 45 minutes and a beer before I finally calmed down.

Anyway, this puts a pretty big damper on my running career, since I'll never be stepping outside again, but I still might use this blog to post my increasingly insane ramblings as I adapt to the lifestyle of a hermit.

*Special thanks to Chris for the "snake oil" joke.

I Am Not a Fan...

Of snow, whenever it may fall. Especially when we get a what is shaping up to be a decent winter storm in October.

I am very much a fan of the mighty augers of death that turn three hours of shoveling into an activity that is more akin to shooting the snow out of a cannon.


As you can see from this colorful photo, the snow is only 4-5 inches, but it was extremely heavy. This is not a small snow blower we are talking about here, but the snow was so wet and heavy that several times I had to clear the augers and the impeller of slush that was clogging them. Our snow blower wasn't working during the double blizzard of 2010, so I'm always a bit nervous the first time each season I fire it up. It took several tries to get it started, and after feeling how heavy this abominable snow was, I had a moment of snow panic when I thought it wasn't going to start. Thankfully, it did, and cleared the driveway in about 30 minutes.

I detailed in my last whiny post all the bad decisions I've made during this marathon training season. On the other hand, it was a clear stroke of genius, by which I mean luck, that I switched my 20-miler to last weekend. I love it when a plan comes together.

Sluggish

You may have noticed that I dislike running in hot weather. Therefore, over the last few days when I saw 58 degrees as today's low, I made it my plan to get out for a run this morning. I got ready to go, and checked weather one last time only to find that it already was supposedly 68 degrees. Oops, the low is supposedly tonight.

But, I was up and ready to get out there, so out there I went. I arrived at my starting point at Northeastern High School and found a cloud cover that would not be out of place on Venus, humidity that I suspect was well above 90%, and according to the digital sign at the school, a temperature of 66 degrees. With the sun a distant memory, the heat alone wouldn't have been as bad, but the Amazon-jungle strength humidity made the run unpleasant by about the time I hit mile 2. I pressed on, though, since I had eaten quite heartily the day before and had a big diner breakfast in the near future.

The roads and sidewalks of Manchester were deserted, as other humans had wisely elected to stay in their beds. But I was not alone.

I see slugs on almost all my summer morning runs. I try not to step on them, but they seem pretty innocuous most of the time. But I've NEVER seen a slug like this:

(10oz. hydration bottle for scale)

Anyone who has seen the 1988 horror classic "Slugs" knows that slugs are terrifying predators who can decimate a whole town. So, a few of my high school friends and I are probably safe at least. Since I have seen the film, I took off running. I mean, I was already running, but I started running faster and went farther just to get away my pursuer. In hindsight, I probably needn't have worried. My route crossed the path of Giant Mutant Slug twice, and in the time it took me to run two miles, my slimy nemesis had moved about six inches.

In my escape, I went 10 miles in 1:36:35, bringing me to 38 miles this week, my second highest mileage week ever. I got three 30-milers in in pretty warm, humid conditions, so I think I can work my way up to some 15-16 mile long runs by the end of August, especially if I can find somewhere flatter and shadier than my usual courses.