Some people dread running in the summer, as they fear dehydration, or just looking unattractively red in the face and sweaty. Others worry about the winter, and the hazards of snow and ice, slowing you down and causing slips and falls and hence injuries.
One season that a lot of people forget about is the autumn - this brings to mind beautiful sunny days, with cool crisp mornings. Leaves are turning to beautiful shades of golds, browns and reds and all is well with the world.
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| ?Early Lyme Disease |
I know that I have been referred to as "Calamity Jane", but I have found this particular fall to be rather a dangerous time to be running in Dumfries.....not because of the people or the neighbourhood (though there are your usual dogwalkers with extendable leads, those with dogs not under control, teens etc that like to shout out of car windows, drivers that scare you beeping their horns to say hello etc etc) but because of the environment and "acts of God".
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| Sniper attack! |
If you venture out to the woods, you can spot deer jumping across in front of you (though sometimes you wonder if it's the same animal laughing at you when you've become rather disorientated and lost as I did one cold, misty, rainy day) but you may also come back with a passenger....as ticks are around and can lead to Lyme Disease in the unwary.
Running round housing estates can also be dangerous.....I ran to my local polling station during the Independence Referendum, and thought I'd been hit by a sniper on my way in. It was a nice wasp sting to the neck which took a couple of weeks to fully settle.
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| Steeplechase? |
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| Owwwwww!! |
The wind can be an issue, as roads can become blocked with fallen trees - it seems that we have had rather more than our usual number of gales and so I've had to develop my steeplechase skills, and the wind also causes some minor head injuries when conkers pelt down on top of you.
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| Bubbling up in the path |
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| A disappearing path.. |
I love to run alongside the river, as it's usually beautifully tranquil, but sometimes the river has seemed to bubble up through drains in the path in front of me, and at other times I have been forced to backtrack when the path disappears from sight under floodwater.
Actually, now I think about it, a lot of these incidents occur on the one day a week when I run into work, so maybe the actual issue is not running in the autumn time, but more that someone is trying to tell me not to go to work!!!
Oh dear! That tick bite is a corker :(. Maybe you need to move somewhere nice and safe. Question is- do you need to go into the city or would that be even more dangerous with the irate cars, dogs and cyclists?!
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the dark nights and mornings and the dangers that come from running in the dark conditions as well as the lack of vitamin D that we usually get from running in the sunshine :-)
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