Chasing pavements

Went for a walk on the trail behind my house tonight. I could jump over my fence and wade through the creek of murky water, but instead I opt to walk through my neighborhood to the public entrance like all normal people. With my itouch and key in my vest pockets I set out doing my power walk. My stumpy legs scream at me to slow down, but I press on. I don't know about you, but when I walk fast I'm not processing all the stimuli around me. I'm either focused on my breathing, or the music I'm listening to, or I'm watching the pavement for those cracks that jet upward and try to trip me. Every now and then a shiny red truck distracts me, or a strong man running without a shirt on that looked exactly like Matt Damon.

I do have a point to this story....

As I'm walking on the sidewalk I notice some men working on a driveway a few houses ahead of me. At the same time an older gentleman steps out of his shiny red truck, and heads towards the driveway. At the rate and distance we were both going a collision looked likely, so I sped up and bolted in front of him. Then I tip my head to look at the men who are smoothing down a newly paved driveway at this man's house. The paver closest to me smoothed a section down with a tool that reminded me of a shower squeegee. I became so fascinated with their precision that I wasn't watching where I was going.

Just then I felt a squish underneath my feet. I gasped and jumped back to see my giant shoe prints in the fresh pavement. "Oh no!" I yelled and covered my mouth. The older man whose pavement I just wrecked goes, "oh you're in the doghouse now!!"
"I'm so sorry!" I said over and over. For a second that's all I could think of to say. What I wanted to say was, "why don't you put up those cones!??! You know? Those bright orange cones?" But all I managed to say was “sorry”.
I watched the construction guy stand up and look at my shoe prints. I thought he was going to be pissed at me, but he just said, “It’s alright. It's not a big deal." It sounded like he really meant it too.

I didn't say another word, I just kind of ran away cause I felt like a dumb ass. I was really thankful he was so gracious to me. God bless him.

So I shook it off and started running as soon as I hit the trail. It felt effortless. I ran for at least 5 minutes without stopping or getting a stitch in my side, which is huge for me. I looked up to see two guys running towards me. "Yes!" I think to myself," they're going to think I'm a hard core runner just like them!" We exchanged smiles...you know the smile that says, "hello fellow runner" and one of the runners waved at me. Yes! I'm so cool.

I ran until they were out of sight then I bent over and threw up.

Just kidding, it wasn't like that.