Some of my runs are more entertaining than others… For example my marathon training calls for 5 “easy” miles today… I recently downloaded new music to my iPod… Alison sent me a funny running e-mail that I got just before heading out the door so I was feeling pretty good…
The weather is perfect… warm sunshine with a cool breeze.. I smiled…
I push play and start out of my driveway to the easy beat of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow (very tropical sound)... the blood in my legs feels like molasses at first… I think, “That will go away in a few minutes… hang in there.” 

As I start to get warmed up a flood of thoughts begin processing through my mind…“What a beautiful day…What do I have to do at work today?... It would be cool to know how to play the ukulele…My 20 mile run is coming up this weekend… Maybe I overreacted to the yogurt disappearing…Today is my Friday…”
I run at around a ten minute mile pace on easy days…  11 minutes in I was feeling good… at 14 minutes I nearly stepped on a dead squirrel on the side of the road..
Thought = “Eewh…Oooh… oh.. I hate that…”
My house is about 10 to 15 miles from civilization…. I don’t usually encounter people on my runs… deer yes…. I have different “loops” I have come up with… today’s involved going down a total of 5 dead end roads…  22 minutes in I was checking off the second cul-de-sac…
At about 28 minutes I was listening to one of the Zac Brown Band songs “Chicken Fried” - singing the words… “I thank God for my life…. for the stars and stripes…” out loud…

Then I look over to the right and there is a man propped up on some contraption… smoking a cigarette… wearing a hat that looks like it came from Gilligan’s closet.. just staring at me from under the brim…
He startled me at first…. in my typically bouncy… happy… Karen way- I gave him a big grin and a huge wave… nothing… he sat there as still as a statue…. like a character in a Norman Rockwell print… forever paralyzed on a “month marking” page of a calendar…
Thought = “Oh well… he wasn’t very friendly - on my way back I won’t even look over there… get your mace out.”
I always carry pepper spray with me in case I encounter and wild animals or people… this man did not look wild but just in case I pulled out the little cylinder of spray.
Culdesac number 3… check….

I started running back up the road… and who do I see but the tall wire-thin man walking in my direction… his pants are a faded color of red like I have never seen… pale blue shirt… easy steady gate…
Thought= “What the heck is he doing… do I look down?  Do I look at him? What?... This is really weird.”
Then, he gets this big toothy grin on his face… and I see his lips moving… I hit stop on my iPod…
I asked him, “What did you say?”
He says louder, “I said, if you’ve got all that energy in ya… why don’t you come over and help me split some wood?”
I laughed… and it dawned on me that he wasn’t unresponsive to my wave the first time because he was being rude… but perhaps because he was shocked and wondering what the heck was coming down his little country road.
There I am with my Nike running shoes… bright orange swoosh down the side… a ball cap trimmed in lime green… a shirt that has some of the brightest splashes of blue you could imagine… with a hot pink iPod strapped to my arm - singing out loud to the Zac Brown Band!!
He continued on his way and I continued on mine… the smell of freshly chopped wood was strong for the next minute or so… two more cul-de-sacs left..
The rest of the run wasn’t nearly as entertaining…