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.
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