Words 709; one pic
“What are
you?!? You don’t see nothing? My little one flew into the air; his wits were
damaged!” These are only a few of the
possible words that may have been hurled toward me by a babushka (stress on the
first syllable /BAH-boosh-ka/) who had been walking her dog down my sprint
venue-- Marshall Roccosovskovo Boulevard.
After
finishing a very quick sprint—only 2 seconds slower than my all-time best, I
turned and saw a babushka gather up her small dog (I’ve seen bigger rats run up
someone’s pant leg in a corn crib). Now,
this was a dog in name only. In
actuality, it was more of a small hairless kitten.
It’s ears were triangles pointing straight up and out like cat
ears. There were caramel-colored hairs
popping out from the head and the eyes were big and bubbly. The thing was
probably the model for the Gremlins of the eighties movie fame.
I quickly
surmised the situation. I had reached my
mid-run sprint course and began with great enthusiasm in 4°C weather.
I noticed the pavement was about twice as wide as it has been for
several months. Apparently, the grounds
crew had decided to clear some snow.
Ooo-rah! Spring is coming.
This was in
the middle of the day, so there were more people, dogs and baby carriages than
there are at my usual running time in the morning. I had to adjust my route a bit to weave among
the pedestrian traffic, but nothing terrible.
At one
point a babushka was on the right side of the 2 meter wide pavement and her dog
was on the other. Fine, I could easily run
between them. As I pass, I feel
something on my leg. I unconsciously
straighten my leg, and let it go limp for a second. The feeling goes away. (I’m
sure this move cost me at least 2 seconds).
I’m running at my absolute fastest and I cannot take time away to think
about such things. After finishing 5
seconds later, I see her coming at me with fire in her eyes, and all is
clear. “It was a dog leash.”
I would
have liked to make some kind of explanation, but word formation was low on my
list of priorities as I was absolutely out of breath. I made no coherent words. The dog didn’t look injured, but I can
imagine that if I had truly clipped his leash, this half-pound whisker of an
animal may have been flipped around to the point where the daylights were
definitely scared out of him. All I
could muster, while I was gasping to fill my screaming lungs with life-giving
oxygen, was a weak look of concern and a feeble attempt to pat the canine. For
this bit of animal love, the woman sternly jerked her shoulders and pranced
away.
Before I
started, I said to myself that if I achieve a time under 1:01, I will NOT run
the stairs when I get back to the apartment.
As you see above, I missed that goal by 00.06 seconds. So I had the stairs to look forward to.
I had a
lesson in the bank today from 8 am to 9:30.
Then I came home and took a nap.
When I woke up, I was suffering from unfocused indecision. The solution:
run. Though I was wearing mostly
the same clothes—long-sleeved t-shirt, nylon pants and shorts, fleece gloves
and a Don’s Farm Supply stocking hat—I felt freer and more able to move. A lot of snow had melted. There was some ice and the snow pack was
slushy.
When I
began the stair climb, my legs were heavy.
This was a bad sign because this usually doesn’t happen until the 12th
floor. I don’t look at the floor numbers
on the wall because I don’t want to be disappointed—psychology is
super-important. Things were going
poorly…especially when, against my better judgment, I looked at the wall and
saw that instead of the 13th floor (and 3 flights left), I saw the
11th floor, and 5 flights to go. Ugh!
When I reached the top, though, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I
had achieved a time only .3 seconds slower than my record. Wow.
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