Up to Speed

I am not the person who needs a blog, in any way. A 36 year old corporate tax lawyer with two kids and one on the way, a lovely wife, and "big plastic house in an Indiana cornfield" as my wife puts it, I have enough going on.

Still, for some reason crazy shit happens and I guess I feel the desire to talk about it. Sure, I'll tell the same story twenty times to twenty people over the course of the day, but inevitably the last few people to hear the story get the best, most refined version. So, I thought, I could just write something every now and then and simply tell those same twenty people "Hey, I am not talking today, see www.ftwbadrunner.blogspot.com."

So, as indicated by the title of the page, I run. I run what I think is a fair amount, what my wife thinks is an excessive amount. Often I run at lunch with a group of guys at work, but lately (because of the aforementioned baby on the way and all the havoc she currently wreaks on our lives) I have been opting to run at night, after my two post-gestational daughters have gone to bed.

I set out on one of these nighttime runs just a day or two ago. My house being the constant trainwreck that it has been lately, I didn’t start my run until about 10pm. From my house, a simple out and back down Wheelock Road to Stellhorn Road (some of you know those roads) gets me about 6.3 miles, so I chose that route.

Shortly after I hit the turnaround, and on a particularly dark stretch of Wheelock Road, I noticed a car pass me and almost immediately start to slow down. When it got to about 50 yards ahead of me, it stopped in the road. I thought this was odd, but just kept running, of course in the direction of the car. When I got close to the car, a guy leaned out the window and the following conversation ensued:

Man in Car: Hey Hey!

Badrunner: Uh, hello?

Man in Car: Where are you headed?

Badrunner: (confused/annoyed) I’m out on a run, just running this way.

Man in Car: What kind of miles are you doing?

Badrunner: (annoyed/slightly disturbed) About 6 miles tonight.

Man in Car: Wow. That takes dedication to stick to it. Good for you.

Badrunner: (fairly disturbed/ready to punch the suspected rapist in the face) Right.

Man in Car: Well, have a good night, and be safe.

Badrunner: Well, as long as you don’t rape and kill me down the road …

I am not sure what it was about my outfit (running shorts, headlamp, two flashing red lights for visibility) that said "cruising for dudes," but anyway... Needless to say, the rest of my run was pretty nerve wracking. One slight silver lining, the incident turned my relatively easy run into a tempo run since I was trying to simply get home as quickly as possible.

Anyway, that is the ridiculousness that is my life these days. I hope you'll keep reading.