Thursday, November 17, 2011

Piles of Leaves

This has been leaf removal week in Akron, with giant wheel loaders piling together mounds of dead maple, walnut, oak and ginkgo leaves. These mounds usurp entire lanes of traffic. During my socks-only run last night, I had to weave around these new hills or run right through them when traffic prohibited a wider berth.

The three-mile run was my fastest in this newest choice of footwear, with a 9:34 per mile pace, the fastest rate since Oct. 24. This despite crash landing on a craggy rock hidden in the darkness, the pain so striking that I squealed like a little girl upon impact.

Do you ever make a noise while running and then look around sheepishly to see if anyone was around to hear it? Thankfully, the early nightfall hid my face from any potential witnesses. I couldn't wait to get off that treacherous sidewalk and back onto the smooth neighborhood roads.

During the final mile, I started employing some light-pole intervals. Although my stats reveal a meager 9.3 miles on 2.6 runs per week, the extra effort felt good.

By the time I returned home, the massive mountain of leaves in front of the apartment was gone. It would have been nice to finish off my run with a cannonball dive into such a soft bed.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would you say you squealed like a little girl at a Justin Bieber concert or squealed like a little girl who has just witnessed her older brother doing something gross?

Ironman By Thirty said...

You know what would protect your feet? Shoes.

And what? Now that you are married, the Enthusiast doesn't allow you to do cannonballs onto the bed anymore?

Nitmos said...

You could have just said "squealed like a Viper". We would have known what you meant.

misszippy said...

Kevin and Jamoosh are killing me. I have not only made sounds while running and hoped no one saw me, but fallen and hoped no one saw.