Afraid of the Dark

When I was a kid, I was really scared of the dark.  I remember a really creapy row of houses near my parents house that would teriffy me as a kid and I would race through that area.  It was dark and I'd run or ride my bike as fast as I could to get into light and near "safe" houses.

It was kind of ironic that when my wife and I bought our first home, it was on this street.  It didn't occur to me that I bought a piece of terror until the first time I left our house at night and I could picture a frigtened kid racing down the street in a panic.

I recently didn't get a chance to run until about 8:00 PM.  I was in the mountains of Idaho for work and I typically just run down a country road and down a seldome used path.  It was pitch black and I didn't have a light but I was feeling kind of cocky and proud at my ability to run in the dark an not be afraid.

I ran about 1/4 mile before I saw this dark grey animal race infront of me.  I think it was a deer but I wasn't sure if the deer was running from me or from some other animal.  Earlier in the day I had seen about 30 elk in our field and I started to wonder whether wolves and mountain lions had also seen this tasty herd.

At this point, my heart was racing and I was paranoid.  So I turned around an ran a .22 mile loop around the buildings for the next 36:04.  It was one of the longer 4.5 miles that I've run and a lot of the run was in the dark but at least I didn't need to look over my shoulder the whole time.

The good news is that while I've changed quite a bit in the last 30+ years, some things are still the same.  I run faster when I'm scared and I still get scared.

The groove

First of all, I love the word groove.  I'm not sure whether it is because of the music I was exposed to in the 70's but I like it.

You will notice as you follow this blog or look at my training log on beginnertriathlete.com that I tend to get in the grove for a while and then get out of it. 

Blog entries tends to start a few weeks after the grove starts and end a few weeks before the groove sputters to an end. 

My groove creators are -

1. Great weather
2. An upcoming race
3. Training with people
4. New gear
5. Finishing workouts in bad weather

My grove busters are -

1. Travel
2. Work stress
3. Sickness/Injury
4. Finishing Ironmans
5. Sick Family
6. Darkness!

So, I've been running and now have my bike set-up for winter training.  I have the Sufferfest videos loaded onto an old laptop and a goal in mind. 

I do have some travel coming up and darkness is here for the next several months but...I think for now, I'm getting in the grove and ready to stay for a while!