20 Miles: Goose, Collie, Buzzards

Marta and I ran 20 miles today.  Here we are at the beginning of the run. One of us doesn't want to do it. I'll let you decide who that is:

It was rainy and chilly, but I was ready for this run because I planned most of the route around West Akron. I decided we would follow my old, old Blue Line route combined with my morning run around the mall. These two combined would give us about 14 miles, so I came up with extra miles along the way. It was an adventure, to be certain.

Our adventure started when a goose attacked us. I know what you are thinking. You think a goose ran after us, but you are mistaken. That goose flew up into the air and came at MY FACE, hissing at us. Marta was looking at a storefront, and I pushed both of us out of the way of the dangerous beast, yelling, "Jesus! It's attacking us!"  I saved our lives, Peeps.

This is EXACTLY how the goose looked when it came at me, Peeps.

Then, as we were running (ok, we were walking here) along the sidewalk on S. Hawkins Avenue, a Collie came out of the yard and aggressively charged us, barking and growling. I thought, This is how it ends, with Lassie tearing out my throat. Luckily, the owner came out, got the dog, and apologized. She saved our lives, Peeps.

Here is a picture of me telling Marta to get out of the way of a car behind her. I saved her life, Peeps.

As we ran up S. Rose, we saw two buzzards tearing apart a brown paper bag. They were ginormous. I wanted Marta to take a picture of them because my phone was in my pack, but she refused because taking pictures of buzzards brings about Bad CroMo. This is short for Croatian Mojo. She did pull out my phone for me, and I was able to take the pictures for you:

We also had a tiny dog yip at us as we passed its territory, but I wasn't scared. It was on a leash.

As we ran, the sun tried to come out, and the sky turned from gray and gloomy to blue and fluffy. Marta and I discussed houses we passed, and before we knew it, we were finishing strong by running down the Portage Path hill to the end of our route.

20.11 miles.  Done.

Now I taper for the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon. Would you like to join me there? Click here to register, and use my code, SI2019, for a 10% discount on any of the races you choose. Get on this, Peeps, the race is quickly filling up!

May you run happy sans wicked geese, dogs, or buzzards, Peeps.

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