Running in the Dark, Tiger Woods and Curly Shuffle

Last night we came home late from our Bible Study group and it is my day of rest from Couch to 5K. Usually, that means that I either a) do a casual run earlier during the day or b) get on the treadmill. But my husband started running with me and he wanted to use MapMyRun with his IPhone, so we headed out to the area behind our house to run.....at 10PM.

Our neighborhood is incomplete. There is an area behind us that has streets, street lamps and plots marked out for homes. But the homes never came. So we felt it was safe going back there to run. Well, I learned that just depends on your definition of "safe".

There were bugs everywhere. They were attracted by the light in the middle of the darkness. Just coming back from Bible Study had me thinking about how we are called to be a light unto the world. That in the midst of darkness, the unsaved should be running, as fast as they can, to the light. But that is not the case, and I blame us, the church, for not loving as much, unconditionally. But let me get off the preacher box.

The bugs were everywhere. I was expecting the mosquitoes, especially after a warm winter and all the rain we have had recently. So I bathed in mosquito repellent before I left the house. They are so abundant that I felt as if I was at war with them They were attacking every part of my body that was not sprayed and I was racing to spray that area.

June bugs, ok I can handle those. They are cute. I remember picking up as a child and playing with them. And let's face it, its June. They will be gone in July. The crickets were a bit creepy. They were everywhere and jumping around me. Those were annoying but I could handle those. So far, the bugs I had seen were bugs that I expected.

But I forgot about the spiders. And we are not talking Charlotte's web spiders. We are talking big ugly spiders that jumped one to two fee in either direction, when they felt threatened. And apparently, I was threatening when I ran passed them. Some are flat and light in color but huge. If you make a fist and look at the circumference of your fist, where your thumb curls over your pointer finger...that big. And then there were some just a bit smaller but their legs went about an inch to two inches in the air and then back down. Those jumped high.

Well those spiders had me doing the curly shuffle all over the street. And I am about as fluffy as Curly, so I probably looked as silly. They would jump one way and I would try to jump the other way. Or I wouldn't see them until they were flying in the air and so I would come to a complete stop on a dime and turn and go the other way.

But they helped my time. When I finished, I received a "Congratulations, this is Tiger Woods, you just recorded your best time ever." Wuu huu...on a casual day, I beat my best time ever. Life is good, even with spiders.

Things I didn't expect:

• Loving a casual run
• laughing at spiders
• Running with my husband would be fun
• Different forms of running result in different pace times, I think on my DOR I am going to explore running techniques
• That it takes me about 20 minutes to warm up before I feel good running.
• That going a day without some form of movement would seem as if something was missing that day.
• OH, and I found out that a couple, in our Bible Study are runners, and have run the Boston Marathon...pretty cool, huh?

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