Weekend

Bob -

I ended up doing nine miles on Saturday.  The schedule said 17, but this is what I could do.  What I had time for.  I typically work on Saturday, but usually schedule it later so I can run with my running group.  This week I had to meet an electrician at 8 a.m., so I started at 6.  I ran with two other people, Christina and Angie, who also wanted to do 17.  The difference is, they kept going.  It was a good quality run with one drawback...spiders.  Spiders love to spin their webs across trails.  They really love it.   I know spiders are on this earth for some good reason, but I can't figure it out.  They are supposed to eat the bugs that are around, but they don't do a very good job, because bugs get me all the time.  I'm going to fast forward to Sunday, where I did a 5 mile trail run with some other people.  That was great.  Very humid, but great.  The problem with humidity though, is that apparently it creates giant horse flies.  Swarms of giant horseflies.  They were swarming me and the others and they were giant.  Did I mention that the horseflies were big?  They were.  Every time we stopped the horseflies would land upon us.  Stinging, eating, trying to carry us off to their den.  Where does a horsefly live?  A den? A nest?  Or do they just fly around all the time until they die?  Flying, stinging, looking for horses?  I'm a runner and not a biologist, so the answer to all that is may be on another blog, but I don't really care that much, so you will have to figure that one out yourself.  Anyone looking to me for any kind of answer is going to be sorely disappointed, because I am not that guy.  I keep my knowledge tight to my chest.  Locked away.  Anyway the flies were big.  At one point we came upon a guy and two dogs.  He was looking off down the  trail.  He asked us if we saw the black bear we must have run by.  We said no, but I wondered if he saw the flies.  Worrying about a bear while the real danger of being carried off by giant horseflies was so worrisome.  The thought briefly crossed my mind of what I would do if one of the group started getting eaten by a bear.  I pretty much figured that once a bear started eating someone, there wouldn't be much left to save and if I stopped I could cramp up and never finish my run.  I'm not much of a hero anyway and if I tried to save the eatee and somehow succeeded that when I was interviewed by the local paper I would probably just say, "duh" or "I saw bear", because I don't talk good and I am very camera shy. So the whole hero thing may not work out for me.  Back to Saturday.  Lots of spider webs.  They got in my face and in my hair and I'm sure the spiders were just waiting for me to die so they could have their feast.  My opinion of the whole thing is this.  Spiders should eat the giant horseflies.  That is their job.  If they want something bigger...eat a bear.  That way I do not have to worry about getting stung or saving someone from getting eaten.  I can be left to run, which is the reason I went out in the first place.