From watching the sun peak over loblolly pines to watching the sun hover over the ocean.
From running at 5 am with no one out-and-about to running at 5 am with the people already through half their day.
Deer prancing around low shrubbery vs. crackheads weaving in and out of corner stores.
From Bartram Forest to Mount Trashmore.
From Milledgeville, Georgia to Portsmouth, Virginia.
Something is to be said about running in cities versus running in the forest. I’m 23 and unemployed, so obviously I know what I speak of.
I’ve been residing in the Hampton Roads for a few months now. I feel fairly acclimated to the 757 (which nobody besides newbies call it that) which is comprised of the P-town, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Norfolk (where I spend most of my exploring), Chesapeake, Newport News, and Suffolk (it seems no one cares much for Suffolk) with a few other cities sprinkled in. While almost two million people live in a density of 3,300/square mile, the area I’ve spent for the past few years running in Georgia has a density of 177/sq. mi. in almost the area. SO odds are I’ll see some young jock once-in-a-while.
The reason these statistics are brought up, which I didn’t use Wikipedia as a reference, is the space Jonny long-legs can spread his strides. In middle Georgia as long as it wasn’t “open season,” I wouldn’t be accidentally shot on one of the gravel trails I would meander on most mornings. But I haven't learned this city well enough. It's intimidating; it's not an place people are used to seeing other people running. I'm not in the nice suburbs where you see a band of stay-at-home moms walking alongside freshly cut Kentucky bluegrass. This lesson was learned abruptly when I first moved here:
It was 5 am and Ellie Goulding was blaring in my Bluetooth wirelesses. My routes included anything that was well-lit and that was only a neighborhood that was recently built up around a recently built up golf course that was across from a recently built up community college that was recently built up across a bus station. I could get a few miles out there but wanted to venture out, naturally as a runner and grand voyager.
The decision was made to take a left instead of a right, and I was out of my comfort running zone (yay!). But that’s not the end of what happened (boo!). My eyes connected with glimmering lamp posts that sputtered out the remaining watts it was trying to sustain. Familiar sights of ’79 Coupes sitting on 24s with candy paint with the butterfly doors and run-down shacks somehow kept me at ease. These places I ran around in Milledgeville but the area was so small that I knew people, at least people who know the person I knew. I used to pick of trash once once a weekend around the area. There were only about 18,000 people there. There was 100,000 people here. And they don’t know me. Doubt they would want me to do a community trash clean-up.
What would expect with a man the size of a hybrid running at you in the dark?
I think I got maybe a quarter of the mile off from my route. Ellie Goulding still belting out lyrics. My feet approached a fellow who resembled Redman in his prime. I began to cross the boulevard about 1,000 of my size 14 Aasics away from him, as not to startle the sir. I reckon he had heard my steady breathing and made an brash 180 degree turn; with one hand in the air pointing at me, with one hand grabbing towards his waist, which was somewhere around his mid-thigh apparently. I did a 180 myself and went back home, not looking to even try and see what he was trying to fiddle with down there. Similar to when I ran to close to that skunk off Bartram. Right?
Okay, lesson learned. Back home to try again tomorrow morning.
Side note: Look for construction equipment on long runs to use the bathroom. There's normally an unlocked port-o-potty. I'm sure they don't mind.
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