Not Off to an Auspicious Start

The thing about this running business is that I need a place to do it. And I have a place. I’ve been there many a time, and it’s rather lovely. It’s a small fishing lake, set back off of a busy main road, and if you didn’t know it was there, you would go your life whole life never seeing it. Normally I go there just to stroll, often with my husband. My kids like it there. There are several nature trails, and lots of geese and ducks and other birds that I don’t know the name of… in short, a very pretty place. And it has the added bonus of having a long, looping running/walking trail with thoughtfully planted distance markers. What’s not to love?

Only thing is, it’s about fifteen minutes from my house by car. Now, normally I don’t even think about that distance, because normally it’s inconsequential. However, just this past week, my car had an issue. Needless to say, that issue needed to be repaired. That cost some moolah, of which I was fortunate enough to have just enough of, of which the fallout of that is until payday, the only driving I can afford to do is to take my husband to and from work, and my children to and from school. That is it. 

So my plan of running at The Lake was temporarily put on hold. No big deal, I told myself. I had decided that Monday (last Monday) was The Day. More formally known as The Day Jenna Is Getting Her Ass In Gear (And Hopefully Loses Some Of It In The Process). You can see why I shortened it to just “The Day”, right? But I digress. Anyway, I had decided that this past Monday was The Day. And since I wouldn’t be going to The Lake to run, I was going to run around my ‘hood.

I live in a cozy little neighborhood we’ll call The Village. We moved here about three months ago, and although I’m very familiar with my street, I have yet to explore the rest of them. I figured, I’d run up and down the narrow streets, see what there was to see. Who knows, maybe I’d like it so much, I’d run here half the time, for variety or whatever.

Yeah.

That isn’t going to happen.

See, what I didn’t take into account was how many people have dogs. Now, I like dogs. I’m admittedly afraid of the larger breed dogs, but I try not to let it hold me back too much. Not enough to stay indoors or anything. I did take that into account when I decided to go running around my ‘hood, but I figured what dogs there were would a) be used to people out and about; there are a lot of kids and pedestrians around here and b) they’d be behind fences.

At first, everything went well. I ran down one street, up another. Started the walking part of my running plan, and that’s when the first dog scared me. It barkedbarkedbarked from behind it’s fence, rushing back and forth, totally convinced that I was some evil doer intent on doing evil, right there, and it was letting me know that I better take that evil and do it somewhere else or it’ll give me a what-for! Like I said, fence, dog, but the fence was kinda low… and the dog kinda big… and I think that if further agitated, it could probably get over that fence if it felt it had to. Note to self; avoid this street in the future. Nooo problemo.

I rounded the corner, my heart pumping more from just the exercise, and started down another street. Wouldn’t you know it, on someone’s front porch, there was yet another large dog, this one white, and this one no happier to see me than its neighbor. There was a gate between me and it, but that dog, barkingbarkingbarking and pushing on it, well, that gate didn’t seem like much. Note to self; avoid this street, too. Okie dokie.

The final straw came when I was actually within sight of my own house, up the street and headed down a slight hill. This last dog came at me from behind a fence, jumping on its hind legs, barkbarkbarkbarkbarking at me and trying to get over. That one in particular scared the shit out of me. First, it didn’t start barking at me til I was right there next to it, and even then it did the whole lungy-growly thing before it started barking. I have to admit, I screamed and darted across the street and then just took off down it while that dog growled/barked at my ass as I booked it.

I ran all the way home.

Note to self; wait til you can go to The Lake, and then implement The Plan, m’kay? Yeah? Yeah.

Roger that.

Until then, however, I will do some stretching and stuff in my own living room. Limber up. Monday will come… again. And then we can do a take two.

Peace.