Thursday, August 7, 2008

the streak


I try to stay sane by running, but I don't know if it's working. Lately, I've been getting in about 5 or 6 miles per day.

I’m a streak runner. Not like what they did in the 70s, though.

Streak runners run every day, no matter what... rain, snow, fires, whatever. With my current streak, I haven't missed a day in more than eight years. It’s an unfortunate kind of addiction, I guess, because sometimes -- like if I have a plane to catch or just a really busy day -- it might mean getting out for a run at 3 AM, a time when some of my friends are just going to bed.

You see things at 3 AM that you’d never see in the daytime. Where I live, that means seeing things like mountain lions or bobcats and deer, stuff like that. And on really warm nights, I’m always afraid I’ll end up stepping on a rattlesnake. A runner friend of mine did that once, and got bit.

I could carry a flashlight, but that's not very cool-looking, and I kind of like the potential dangers I can't see.