Oh, deer!

I started an enormous posting, but have put that on hold - I might actually have the makings of a novel. I want to think about it before sticking it up on this site.

Anyway, my week was pretty much a downer until the weekend. I'm never too worried about age. Well, maybe I am. Turning 45 kind of threw me for a bit of a loop. I think I had my mid-life crisis (if I live to be 90, Hah!) in a period of about 48 hours. No, I didn't go out and buy the sports car, divorce my wife (which would've been hard to do since I'm single), or quit my job and join an ashram. But I did have a few 3 a.m. panic attacks consisting of the what are you doing with your life variety.

Friday, I started to recover by having dinner with a few close friends. I also ran into the best friend I ever had in my youth. We hadn't seen each other in 7 or 8 years. It was really wonderful to be surrounded by all my great friends, newer and older.

Saturday, I popped out for a morning run (I did run every day last week, but hadn't hugely enjoyed them until Sat). It was a muddy affair, but I finally fell into an easy rhythm and cruised. In the afternoon, I watched the KU game at a neighbor's house. The picture above is of 7 of the 14 deer that appeared in their back yard (you can see them in the center through the trees). It was a bit nuts. I live on the other side of the neighborhood, and get some deer and coyote that cruise through the high school lot, or up the ravine behind my place. But I had never seen that many deer in one place before. They also get a flock of turkeys and the obligatory coyotes as well.

Anyway, so Sunday I set off for a run at 10 a.m. I wasn't really feeling it when I took off. The route I was taking was so shrouded in fog that it was hard to tell exactly where I was. As I neared the SLT trail, a deer cruised out of the mist in front of me. It kind of freaked me out, because it was a pretty big animal, and in a collision I wasn't going to be the one emerging unscathed. Well, the animal cruised in front of me from right to left and then stopped next to the path, watching as I ran past. It was such a beautiful critter, made more so by the softening lens of the fog. I felt fortunate to have encountered the animal.

Anyway again, I had planned to just do a 4 miler. But when I came to my turnaround point, I was starting to feel OK. So I thought I'd just push ahead to my 10k turnaround. But funny thing, when I reach that turnaround point I also felt pretty good. So I figured why not just go to my 8 mile turnaround. And, you guessed it, at the 8 mile turnaround I figured that since I was already out that far, I might as well do the whole circuit; so I pressed on to the 10 mile loop. I had no problems to report. It did occur to me about mile 7.5 that I hadn't brought and energy shots or fluids because I hadn't planned on such a long run. But then I put it out of my mind and simply pushed on. And you know what? The run turned into one of those zen-like experiences where it seemed to be more of an up and down motion than a forward motion experience. The fog certainly helped that feeling, because I had little idea of my progress. But an hour and 21 minutes after I had begun, the run came to an end at my back door. The challenges of the previous week had been vanquished and balance restored.