Another run in the park, another batch of stories!

Tonight, I ran the entire loop of Central park for the second time. Except this time, I decided to run in the opposite direction (the fist time I went counter-clockwise). The main reason for this was that it would be dark at the end of my run, and I wanted to avoid running near Harlem after dark. So my run was an enjoyable six miles in the (finally) cool, fall weather in New York. Not only was this run enjoyable, it was also blogable!! You betcha. I came out of that run with more stories certainly than the entire rest of my day combined. And, you know what, while I was running, I was thinking about all the things I would write in my blog, and it kind of made the time go faster. See how things work out like that?

So anyway, I had a very interesting run. I’ll tell this story chronologically, so imagine each of the events happening at a different point in my clockwise loop!

The first crazy occurrence of my run was when I spotted my first wildlife!! That’s right, a raccoon ran right out in front of me and then just kind of stopped there, scared that I would run into it. So I swerved around the raccoon and I think actually made the guy behind me come pretty close to kicking it (I was blocking his view until it was nearly too late!).

After the raccoon, I kept running for about a mile or so. Now, I’ve always been told that I run on my toes. One time at the Y, this guy came up to my treadmill and was like “are you a sprinter?” Do I LOOK like a sprinter to you, buddy, get to the point! He went on to tell me that I run on my toes like a sprinter. Who knew. Anyway, this happened again at TNT practice a few weeks ago, one of the coaches stopped me and told me, essentially, that if I liked having my shins in one piece, I should learn to land more flat-footed. Well, today’s chastisement takes the cake. While I was running down the east side of the park, this relatively good-looking boy ran up beside me and motioned for me to take my headphones off. Ok, fine. Then he says, “Are you ok?” Naturally, I told him I was, as I was clearly running with no problem. Then he looked down at me again and said, “You really run on your toes.” I asked him how I could fix this problem and he – ingeniously – suggested that I land on my heel. Brilliant. I told him that I have had several people tell me that I run on my toes, but no one has bothered to help me fix the problem. He replied, “Well, at least you’re building up your calf muscles” and sped away. Another critique, still no advice...So a note to all the single women reading this (are there any?), a good way to pick up a good-looking, athletic boy is to develop a noticeably bad running form. They will swoon, I promise.

Ok, so I kept running for about another mile when I approached a fork in the road where I had not previously seen one. It’s one of those scenarios where you don’t notice it coming from one direction, but from the other direction, it presents quite the conundrum. Well, I used my best Lucyk judgment and followed the advice of our family vacation T-shirt and (now) the CD of photos that I received from said vacation – I took the fork. This did not turn out so well. Before I knew it, I was running in the horse lane which, as you may have inferred, means that I was running on piles of horse poop, and it smelled AWFUL!! The thing is, though, the horse-poop trail was separated from the normal road by a cobblestone divider. If you have ever run on cobblestone you know that it is a sprained ankle waiting to happen, so I had to take my time getting out of the horse-poop trail before I could be free from the stench.

So now I’m rounding the final major turn in the park when I realize that it feels as though something has made its way into my shoe (presumably some wood or a rock or something) and is lacerating my toes. I stopped on the side of the path, sat down, and took off my shoe only to find that my toes had been rubbing together creating a very raw patch of skin that was sending sharp pains through my foot. I had about a mile until home, so I decided to keep running to get it over with because both walking and running hurt equally. It was another ½ mile before I realized that I was no longer carrying the keys to my apartment in my left hand. Not good. Without those keys, I have no way to get home, no phone, no money, nothing. All I had on me was my iPod and my keys. I turned around and ran the ½ mile back to the spot where I thought I had sat down (really the side of the road looks the same everywhere, so I was guessing. I spent about 5 minutes trying not to look like I was looking for something because I didn’t want anyone to offer to help. Finally, just as I was about to give up, I glimpsed the American flag keychain on my ring. I grabbed the keys, kissed them, danced around a bit, and headed off.

My final interesting encounter of the day happened just after this when I saw a family of 3 raccoons crossing the path in front of me. Crazy, I’ve never seen wildlife in the park and today I saw 3 specimens!

As a result of my key detour, I bet I ran about 6.5-7 miles today. Good times.

That is the end of my run. Oh, and stay tuned, my next post will be well worth your time to read, I promise!!