My First Run (Outside)

Sit down, grab a tasty beverage of your choice, and read this little tale I have to spin about running outside.

I did some math yesterday and figured out that if I run two miles every day this week, until Friday, I'll be caught up on my mileage for the year. After that it's a mile a day. Clear sailing. I went to the gym around 6:45, hoping to bust out a quick two miles and have plenty of time to come home, make myself a Jack and Coke, pop in Season 3 of lost, eat some left over pizza, and have one hell of a night.

Turns out the fates are against me. When I got to the gym, the parking lot was absolutely full. Figuring there was no chance of getting on a treadmill, I decided to come home, put on some pants and a hoodie, and take it to the streets. Only problem is, I only know a three mile loop from my house, and I am so incredibly lazy that I was not interested in MapMyRun.com-ing what two miles would be. "Screw it," I thought. "I'll bust out a quick three and call it a night."

So I'm running outside, in the snow, and around 1.25 miles a little piece of crap (can I say "crap"?) dog comes running and biting at my heals. And when I say piece of crap dog, I mean that this dog was not much larger than a piece of crap. I quickly considered my options, and decided that, having already kicked a cat today (that's a different story entirely), it would be in my best interest, as far as karma is concerned, to not increase my hours-awake-to-animal-kicking ratio. I had to speed up my pace considerably.

After pulling a Usain Bolt on this dog, I hear someone on a front porch yelling, "Hey, get away from my dog!" I briefly turned around to see a woman yelling in my direction, and the little turd dog running back towards his/her (I wasn't sure of its gender and I didn't stop to check) house.

Now, I know when most people post on this blog -- and by "most people" I mean Bill -- it's usually some sort of advice or legitimate concern. This post, however, is a warning. To the lady who yelled at me from her porch: I ran my 3 miles in about 20 minutes today. My highschool personal record was 18:47. There is a solid chance that, over the course of this year, I will come close to beating that record. If I am on pace to set a new lifetime PR, and your dog gets in my way, I will punt it.

That's a promise.