Running on by

Yesterday I left work during the day for an appointment that happened to be near where I live. After the appointment, and since the weather was perfect, I thought it'd be neat to take lunch at home and get in my scheduled 5 mile run during a weekday mid-day, which I don't get to do very often, before I headed back to work.

The run itself was great. 8:26 min/mile pace and 5 miles completed in just around 42:00. And that was with me stopping to help some old guy in a car who needed directions back to the main road. Something I never deal with when the running the roads during the early morning or evening.

The "highlight," however, was when I ran down a road where some lady and a little boy were at their mailbox. You have to imagine me, wearing a backwards cap and shades, shorts and a t-shirt, an mp3 player, huffing and puffing and completely oblivious to the world around me, running on a stretch of a road that isn't exactly isolated. Then picture me coming up on these two, but moving over some to give them some space at their mailbox, and then, when I got within about 10 feet of them, the little boy screaming, at the top of his lungs:

"NO! GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY!"

That little kid made me jump a foot. And my mp3 player was loud.

Look, I'm all for parents teaching their kids to not trust strangers. Heck, I'm a parent myself and this kid, ordinarily, would have made the parent in me proud. However, I believe it's also incumbent on parents to teach their children when to react in addition to how to react, and while standing at a mailbox with your mom as some guy runs past wearing minimal clothing and well out of arm's reach is probably not the time to fear a stranger and react as trained.

But that's just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions...