giggle pop

As many of you know I live in the middle of frickin nowhere, and many of you also may know that one of my favorite activities is distance running. Living in the country has its down sides, but one major upside is endless deserted roads to run forever and ever on. While the road I live on has “highway” in the name, it is a damn road, and I run on it a lot. While running on my road I see lots of interesting things and I figured I would share a few of them with you.

Dashing Deer—this area is overrun with them, they are everywhere. I like them in my yard, at a distance, but not when I am out alone on the road. The other day two ran right in front of me, and when I say right in front of me I mean I could have reached out and touched them. If they ran out into the road about thirty seconds later I would have been crushed by a herd of deer, which would not be a surprising death for me. Another fun fact about me—I often get attacked by animals. To name a few instances…when I was younger a pig chewed on me, I got stalked and attacked by a baby ram at a petting zoo, and then there was that horse at Mardi Gras.

Creepy Corner—Recently I started getting more motivated and finally decided to run up the big hill at the end of the road and see what was up around the bend. Well I discovered that the bend is pretty damn creepy. The nice paved road turns to dirt, which is nice on the knees for running so I kept going. I discovered a “farm.” Well it looks like a farm, but all they seem to be growing on the farm is three or four cows and a crap load of rusty cars. This should have been m first signal to turn around, but running through creepy places at dusk is just too much fun so I kept going. Next up on creepy corner is a little shack/house that paint and everything else is falling off of. I am about 76% sure there are some lampshades in there made out of people.

Fernando the Fox—There is a spot on the road I hit in the middle of my run (usually around 6:30pm if you want to stalk me) and in that spot there is almost always a fox sitting there. I named him Fernando. Just so you know it is after Fernando Gago NOT Fernando Torres. Nothing too exciting about Fernando the Fox other than he is super duper cute and has not attacked me yet. It is not everyday you see a fox so I think he is pretty cool.

Cobra Kai—Yesterday morning I was dragging my fat lazy dog on a walk and I saw someone walking in the distance. I slowly got closer and realized this person was dressed in all white, and as I got even closer I realized it was a man. I thought it was odd to see a man dressed in all white, well in this area it is. While living in New Orleans I am sure I saw a few in all white linen or white suits. Anyways as he got closer I realized he was in a full karate outfit. Let me reiterate I live on a back country road, the closest thing that is not a bar is about ten miles away. I have no idea where he was going or why he was dressed like that. I was tempted to yell out “how’s it hanging Cobra Kai?” but I was worried he may roundhouse kick me in the face.

The other direction—I have only ran one direction from my house, some day I will venture the other direction. I have driven that way a bit and know the road forks. One fork leads to a place called “big timber” I have no idea what it is, but it has a fancy brown sign, so must be cool. I hope it is a giant tree. The other fork goes to the bar. Both pretty awesome destinations.

Yay! It is finally warm enough to run. I have spent the whole winter stuck inside, barely being able to get in a walk a few days a week because it was too cold. Now it is warmish, and I have been running for the past three days. My distance is still okay, my time is horrible, but I don’t really care it just feels so nice to be back out running. Hopefully I will be back into decent shape soon. I think I am going to train for another marathon this summer, and hopefully won’t get injured again.

I really love running up here, I could definitely live up here for a long time, mainly just because it is perfect for distance running. I can leave my house go out on to an empty road surrounded by tons of pine trees and all around beautiful scenery and just run for miles. It is easy just to lose myself look around me and relax. Though knowing myself I am sure at some point I will actually get lost while running on some country road and be eaten by some sort of bear, mountain and/or bob cat, or maybe a horse. Still, it is a great feeling being able to just throw on my shoes and start running out the door and in a few minutes I feel like I am the only person in the world because I could go for an hour and see only one or two cars. One of my favorite things I have are my running shoes. They are getting pretty dirty but other than that are still in great shape. Sometimes it seems like the combo of them and a trusty iPod are all I need in the world.

Now I need to decide if I want to try and get up at 6:30 in the frickin morning to watch the Chelsea game. I miss my DVR sooooo much. Hope everyone has a great weekend, I am going to spend mine on my couch watching football, golf, and basketball I can’t wait!

Songs of the day: 1) “Get on your Boots” U2 and 2)“Watch me Go” Girls Aloud
Why: Both are new additions to my running playlist and were awesome.