Dr.H and I had a long run planned for today. The snow is finally melted, and we wanted to head up to 8000' and run on the Great Western Trail. Earlier this week, I had a customer who lived up the same canyon where we were headed for our run. I asked her if the ground was mostly dry up the canyon. She preceded to say yes (great news!), but since April was relatively cold and rainy there have been a lot more bear sightings where she lives (uhhh what??!!). In fact, her son ran into a bear when he was hiking- but after a few grunts it ran off in the other direction. I HATE when people tell me scary wildlife stories- if its going to happen, I would rather react in the moment instead of dreading it the whole darn run.
So, today- for the entire 13 miles I kept looking over my shoulder expecting a bear to jump out and eat me. I wouldn't let Dr. H stop talking lest we sneak up on a bear. He usually likes to be quiet when we're running, so I'm sure he was just loving my paranoia. To make matters worse, we didn't see a single other human the entire 3+ hours we were out there. All in all, I didn't feel great but got the miles in- and it was a beautiful day. Next time I'll work on spending less mental energy on the bears that are probably out there, but most likely do not want to jump out and eat me.
So, today- for the entire 13 miles I kept looking over my shoulder expecting a bear to jump out and eat me. I wouldn't let Dr. H stop talking lest we sneak up on a bear. He usually likes to be quiet when we're running, so I'm sure he was just loving my paranoia. To make matters worse, we didn't see a single other human the entire 3+ hours we were out there. All in all, I didn't feel great but got the miles in- and it was a beautiful day. Next time I'll work on spending less mental energy on the bears that are probably out there, but most likely do not want to jump out and eat me.