A couple of days ago, Stephanie admitted her fear of being hit by a snowplow while running, along with fears of the dark and dogs. She also hinted that I have my own unusual fear...one that no one would ever guess. However, who could ever look at this and not tremble with fear?!? Or how about this one??? A fear of hay trailers might sound silly until you look around and realize that they NEVER tie those down properly and most of the loads lean one way or the other. The idea of thousands of pounds of hay flattening me to an early demise is truly frightening. I think these loads have always made me nervous, but I had mostly kept it to myself until one of my kids was in preschool and was making a book of feelings. He'd asked me what I was afraid of and I told him trailers of hay. I'm not stupid, if I said kidnappers, the dark or crime, I might have been in for a lot of sleepless nights with a terrified 4 year old. I didn't know what he was doing with the information until parent teacher conferences. We met with the grandmotherly Mrs. S who showed us his book and she got to the page that said, "I'm afraid of Hay Trailers" complete with an illustration of bales falling off every side. She said, "I don't really know what that's about...I did. There have been a number of instances in MN in the past few years of people dying under bales of hay, so this if definitely a real danger. A year or so ago, I was almost crushed by a semi load of hay. I had stopped to allow a pedestrian to cross when he started waving wildly and pointing behind my car. I looked in the rear view mirror to see something just like this not slowing down: Without the quick thinking of the pedestrian, my little car and I would have been made into a pancake by hay, thus validating my fears! My kids also point out that without the pedestrian standing in the intersection, I wouldn't have stopped and also been safe. I've got a clever bunch.
I used to share Stephanie's fear of dogs and would go to great lengths not to pass by where any might live. We seldom see an at-large dog in our city, so that is pretty nice. Once Charlie joined our family, I faced my fear of loose dogs by going to the dog park. At the dog park, you go inside the fence with your dog and lots of others and take them off their leashes to run around and play together kind of like the playland at McDonald's. Not long ago, I would have found going inside the fence ON PURPOSE to be a cause for panic. In fact, I texted Stephanie and Mom from inside the park the first time and their reply was "WHY?" Since Charlie loves going there so much, I have been able to learn to enjoy it. These dogs are not at their own homes, so are not as likely to be aggressive as if you approach their street. I'm not likely to pick up a summer job baling hay, so that fear will just have to stay. This Saturday, my long run includes 5 different miles at race pace. Yikes...scary and exciting. If I can do 5 of them spread out throughout a 16ish mile run by myself, I should be feeling confident about 13.1 in just 5 weeks. Wish me luck! Hope you are also enjoying a slight warm up in weather headed toward the weekend. Happy running! Missee
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AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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