{"id":304,"date":"2013-05-20T18:13:42","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T18:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=304"},"modified":"2013-07-18T19:38:43","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T19:38:43","slug":"why-did-the-beetle-cross-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=304","title":{"rendered":"Why Did the Beetle Cross the Road?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why did the beetle cross the road?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t stop to ask him.\u00a0 Instead I kept right on running, careful not to step on him.<\/p>\n

But if you want to know why Rambling Runner Girl crossed the road, it was to stay in the shade!<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0I got so much more than just a break from the sun.<\/p>\n

Let me explain\u2026<\/p>\n

The saying goes that lightening never strikes twice, right?\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m not sure I really believe that, but I can assure you that tornadoes DO strike the same place.\u00a0 I know this because as I pulled into Babler today, I encountered a sign indicating that parts of park were closed due to storm damage from tornadoes that rolled through last month.\u00a0 This was the same sign I came across in February of 2011 when I was one of the first people to enter the park for a run after tornadoes had done some major destruction.\u00a0 In fact, there was a news crew there that day.\u00a0 They filmed me, interviewed me and gave me about 20 seconds of St. Louis fame.\u00a0 A few weeks ago, the park got slammed again.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, I chose Babler as yesteday\u2019s location for an easy 12 mile run.\u00a0 Ummm, yeah, there is nothing easy about Babler, especially on a day where humidity is at a high for the year so far.\u00a0 Typically, when I run at Babler there is a 4 mile loop that I stick to, mainly because I know it and I don\u2019t usually have enough time to run the 5 mile loop that I\u2019ve heard exists out there.\u00a0 Well, yesterday, I finally chose the road less traveled, at least by me.\u00a0 I ran the big loop twice and added a little out and back stint down a side road that I had never been on to finish out at exactly 12 miles.<\/p>\n

When I ran the first loop, it was overcast and I thought for sure I was going to get rained on.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 But I did meet a turtle on my way out of the parking lot.\u00a0 And I found what was, quite possibly, the world\u2019s longest hill.\u00a0 I\u2019m still not sure why, after a short break at the car to refill my water bottle, I decided to do it again.\u00a0 On the second time around, the haze had lifted and the sun was shining.\u00a0 It was humid and hot.\u00a0 As I crested the world\u2019s longest hill, I started to seek out shade where ever I could find it.\u00a0 So I crossed to the other side of the street.\u00a0 It was at that point that I saw some of the damage done by the most recent tornado to rip through Babler.\u00a0 I had seen several trees down already, twisted and destroyed by the wind, but when I crossed over, I could see down into a ravine of pretty severe devastation.\u00a0 I was shocked for a second that I hadn\u2019t noticed it the first time.\u00a0 How could I have missed that?!\u00a0 But the truth was, I couldn\u2019t see it from the other side of the street, just a few steps away.<\/p>\n

That got me thinking, sometimes I get so focused on what is right directly in front of my face, that I become oblivious to things that really aren\u2019t that far away.\u00a0 I am guilty of being so intensely interested in my phone, or my laptop, that I don\u2019t notice Silas getting into the fridge and pulling out the pitcher of fruit punch until it is spilling all over the floor.\u00a0 (And then I get mad at him for not asking for help.\u00a0 He probably did, and I just zoned out.)\u00a0\u00a0 Likewise, sometimes I get so focused on my Garmin that I forget to enjoy the path that I\u2019m running.\u00a0 Fortunately, yeterday was not like that.\u00a0 It was hot, and a tough run, but I enjoyed it and appreciated it.\u00a0 And I was thinking about another time recently that I was glad that I looked up to see what was going on around me.<\/p>\n

The other day at work, I was sitting on the floor, fitting a customer for some running shoes, when an elderly couple walked in.\u00a0 I greeted them with a \u201cHi, Welcome to FLEET FEET\u201d and a big LJ smile.\u00a0 Then I continued with my customer while Cole assisted the woman who strolled in with her walker, and her husband.\u00a0 After several minutes, my customer had gone outside to run to try out a different pair of shoes, and I looked up from my fit app, to see this old man, on his knees, gently putting his wife\u2019s stockings back on her feet.\u00a0 I caught Cole\u2019s eye, and we clearly had the same thought about how sweet it was that this man was humble enough to get down on the floor and do this for the woman he loved.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been one to live life behind a camera.\u00a0 In fact, at lot of times, I\u2019ll look back at various events and think… I probably should have taken more pictures.\u00a0 But something I have always made a point to do, is take mental snapshots.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad I looked beyond my fit bench the other day, to take a mental picture of that sweet man and his wife.\u00a0 It was a good reminder that there are people who will do things like that for each other.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to think someday when my fingers are too arthritic to tie my own running shoes, that someone, whether it\u2019s my kids or my friends or whoever, will be there willing to do it for me. \u00a0And until then, I\u2019d like to be able to return the favor.<\/p>\n

So, courtesy of yesterday\u2019s run, I hope I will do a better job of remembering to look a little father outside of myself.\u00a0 Run a different route, cross into unknown territory, take a look around and remember that there might just be something bigger and more extraordinary ahead, if I take the time to look up and see it.<\/p>\n

\"Warning<\/a>

Warning at the entrance of Babler<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why did the beetle cross the road? I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t stop to ask him.\u00a0 Instead I kept right on running, careful not to step on him. But if you want to know why Rambling Runner Girl crossed the road, it was to stay in the shade! However,\u00a0I got so much more than just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-lessonsfromrunning","category-randomthoughts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-4U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}