The Little Things
August 29, 2014

How’s that for a random title for a post?

First of all, I want to say a HUGE huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my military brother! While I had an excellent life as an only child, there’s not a day goes by that I’m not thankful that he was born and that he’s my brother. I’m not sure how I would’ve made it through my life/especially the last year without him. Happy Quarter Quell to you baby brother 🙂

So I have a great story for you. It starts with watching a video yesterday at work about cobras being able to bite and kill people after being decapitated (apparently they have that reflexive action for an hour even though they are basically dead) (here’s the link to the video if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4–p_3N5GPg )

Yesterday I was out on a run doing a speed work session that my soccer brother had read about in a journal this past spring. I was in my 3rd interval of sprinting, and saw what I thought was a bigger rock up ahead. I veered slightly, but as I was sprinting, I plowed ahead. I had a few strides left when I realized that what I thought was a rock was actually a severed snake head, and it looked very similar to the snake head in the video. My initial thought was simply “that’s gross”, and then my thoughts caught up with me, and I remembered the severed head still biting at things. Nervous that my foot was going to hit far too close to that head, I took a flying leap while screaming, and probably jumped higher than I have in years. After going a few steps more, I made sure to turn around and make sure that the disgusting head stayed put (it had. phew.). I needed to make sure the snake hadn’t attached itself to my shoe. I’m sure the people around me thought I was crazy (I was in a residential neighborhood), but I guess my flight or flight really kicked in based on that movie. Funny, right?

The speed work is getting easier. I’ve been doing it once every week to every other week depending on what’s going on, and it’s finally starting to feel a bit easier. I come very close to throwing up after each of the work outs though.

After doing a walking cool down from my speed work, I headed in to eat dinner while completing an online training program for biomedical research. Sounds like a fun evening, right? It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, and went MUCH faster than I thought, so that was exciting.

So there’s my funny story for you as we head into our Labor Day Weekend. Although my “end of summer” kind of felt like last weekend since I started work up again this past Monday, this weekend is really the last summer hurrah, and I can’t wait! Hopefully no severed snake heads will be around.

Now it’s your turn to share! What’s the most disturbing thing you’ve seen while running? 

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One response to “Severed Snake Heads, Biomedical Research Training, and Fun With Speed Work”

  1. Amber @ Busy, Bold, Blessed says:
    August 29, 2014 at 11:36 am

    Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

    I almost threw up after my CF workout on Tuesday. I suppose a good sprint will do that sometimes haha.