Day 344, 21 To Go

December 10, 2013

I'm looking at my numbers and trying to remember why my max HR was so high.  Based on my overall pace, I'm pretty sure I ran easy.  It could have been a scare I had with a dog.  Yes, my main nemesis and greatest fear while running: dogs.

You might be thinking that getting hit by a car would be my greatest fear, but no.  I only run in the street in my development, and the speed limit is 20mph.  Even though some idiots might go a bit faster than that, for the most part, I can see them coming a long way off and I can easily avoid them.  When I run at night, I will often hop on the sidewalk when cars are nearby, just to be safe.  I did have a couple of close calls: one was my fault and the other was not.  The one that was my fault was when I forgot how to cross the street.  I thought I had the green light, but I was wrong, and I almost got hit.  Luckily, for me, the guy stopped and didn't run me over.  It would have been completely my fault.  The second time I was running on the street in my development and some guy was driving close to the curb and even though he was getting closer to me, he made no move to go around me.  I eventually hopped up on the sidewalk at the last minute and he never even swerved.  He was probably on his smartphone and didn't even see me.

So dogs are my greatest fear.  Most people have invisible fences which keep their dogs in their yard, but once in a while, they get out.  The fences can't always work and what if there was a power outage (keep in mind, I have no idea how these things work...like maybe they work on batteries...which is even more troublesome because batteries die!)  So I have been chased two times already, and scared an uncountable amount of times by dogs "defending" their territory.  Some of these dogs are big and scary.  What would I do if they came after me?  Well, I'm sure the first thing I would do is scream like a little girl then run as fast as I could.  Of course, I would not be able to outrun a large dog, so I would eventually get taken down by the dog and probably eaten.  One of my greatest fears is becoming animal poop.  I know, it sounds weird, but I just don't want to end up in the digestive tract of some random, vicious, hungry animal!

So, what do I do to protect myself?  Um, nothing.  I just take my chances.  I supposed I could carry pepper spray or something like that, but I don't.  I do recommend that runners carry something like that, especially if you are running in a new area and you are not sure of the potential animal life that is there.  For women, I recommend pepper spray to protect you from animals as well as the most dangerous animal: man.  I also recommend that you do not go running in strange, dangerous neighborhoods by yourself, but we all know bad things happen everywhere, so it is best to be prepared.

Let's take a look at my Tuesday numbers:

Time: 30:00

Distance: 3.27 miles

Pace: 9:11/m

Max Pace: 7:10/m

Calories: 331

Avg HR: 126

Max HR: 152

So my high heart rate was just a scare from an unfamiliar dog.  I did not know if he could get me or not, and he was fairly big.  In either case, it is nice to know that my fight or flight mechanism works well.  As soon as I saw him coming at me, I took off.  I felt light and easy and like I could run forever.  Of course, I slowed down almost immediately as I noticed he was not leaving his lawn.  It was just enough to spike my HR and speed on a nice easy run.  I'm ready for him next time though!

Run for Life!!