Night Run

My eyes popped open from my deep sleep. I looked over at the clock. It was 3:20 a.m.

The stress of buying a new home, changing jobs and being a literary success took its toll on my brain. 

After tossing and turning in bed for an hour and a half, I thought to myself, "Fuck it, I’m going on a run."

I quietly skirted out of my bed, tip-toed around the house to grab my running gear and quietly slipped out of the house.  

Like a chef walking into a meat freezer, a cool breeze hit my face and took my breath away. I stared in awe at the darkened Bath night.

“Where are you UFO’s?” I thought to myself. “Will I ever see you before I die?”

With that last thought, I hopped into the car, clicked on the ignition and slowly careened out of my driveway.

I pulled into Bath Nature Preserve around 3:50 a.m. for an impromptu illegal run (hours are from dawn to dusk). So here I was. The darkness enveloped the entire sky. The skitters and scampers of little forest creatures could be heard in the distance. But that was it. The air was still. I could see my breath misting in the cool air.

To be honest, I was a bit creeped out.

“Maybe I’ll just get back in the car and drive over to the high school and do a couple laps on the track,” I thought to myself.

“Pffft,” the little Eimer devil whispered on my shoulder. “Are you really going to be that big of a pussy?”

“Nooo,” I said to my evil doppelganger, then pulled a 180. “Fuck it, I’m already here. What’s the worse thing that could happen?”

I could die. Gulp!

Thankfully, I had my trusty Energizer Headlamp with four unique shine frequencies, including infrared lens. Yeah, it was dark, but I would be safe and sound as long as my headlamp remained on for my 3.5-mile night run.

"Right?"

I set my watch and took off down the dark grainy path. In the distance to East, I saw the slightest spit of  light from the Fairlawn shopping center. No sign of the sun trying to pull itself out of the darkness. Too early I guessed.

The trail took me through a field. 

I felt a slight tickling at my back and thought about the 'thing' from JEEPERS CREATURES. The thing that could fly in the air. The thing with the cowboy hat. The thing with the dusty MATRIX-like coat. The thing that likes to use people’s bones to create an altar.

Anticipating an aerial assault, I lurched my neck back and forth shining the light from here to there. No JEEPERS. No CREEPERS. 

I continued to run and cut off down a gravel hill, which connected to a rough the horse trail - a trail that was separated to the right by a huge pillar of pine trees and oaks and horse pastures to the left. I noticed a huge mansion, outdoor lights glowing in the distance. Yeah, I was in Bath after all.

I descended the hill and my near-sightedness kicked into high gear as I noticed a black spot down the way. The blur became the creature from XTRO, the alien creature that dropped from the sky and raped a woman with its mouth. A horror that still haunts me to this day. I ignored the lump of whatever on the ground. It may have hissed at me. I picked up my steps and glided by the creature before it could impregnate me with its nasty-eating orifice.

The horse trail careened up a hill. My breathing deeper and shallower, I huffed and puffed up a like the Little Engine That Could; the flashlight on my head bobbing up and down, up and down illuminating the ground in a wobbly, almost-BLAIR WITCH PROJECT-type of cinema verite.

I ran up a forty-five degree incline near the natural gas pump, one of six that lay in the Bath Nature Preserve. To my left, a strange formation stepped out of the woods, it looked to me like the possessed goat in DRAG ME TO HELL. I remembered the white eyes. The satanic look. The immediate hunger for human flesh. My heart began to race as I passed the creature that lay before me...

...only a deer.

It gave out a snort and took off into the woods. That’s when I felt my heart beating more than the required 200 beats per minute. The buck snorted, once again, and shot off into another section of the woods. 

I hung a left down an old grassy trail, which connected, back again with the main running trail, and approached an old wooden bridge.

In the darkness, it almost appeared like a moat bridge from CASTLE GREYSKULL inviting me to commiserate with the likes of He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Beast Man and, more importantly, She-Ra to discuss the political situations with Skeletor on Planet Eternia over a pint of mead.

Then, my mind immediately shifted to think the story of BILLY GOATS GRUFF; more importantly the troll that lurked beneath the bridge. "Could there be a troll underneath this bridge?" I thought as I clopped, clopped, clopped underneath the wooden slats, I overheard the stream gently bubbling underneath my feet. 

Then I heard a rustle. Then I did a 180-degree turn and high-tailed it off the bridge back to the trial and up the hill. I imagined the angry CAVE TROLL from THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, pulling itself from the wooden bridge, goblins by its side, as it ripped and tore the sides of the bridge and quickly reached the nape of my neck.

I yanked my head back. Nothing. I let out a sigh and continued on my journey.

About two miles into my run, I was getting into my groove. Heart beat at 180 or slightly higher, half a yard steps, even breathing and a nice 9:00 pace (hey, I’m not trying to break any world records, here). The darkness grew more ominous as I entered an overlap of trees and slightly into the denser forest.

I heard a faint rustle in the woods to my right. I shined the light into the weeds. Deep in the distance a faint shadow appeared. Memories of AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON shot through my skull. The scene where the man is heading up the escalator and scans down the steps to see the hulking werewolf slowly, almost casually, heading toward its prey.

Which reminded me of a story...

When I was a little kid, we had two sets of stairs in our house. The first set of steps ran up from the kitchen and pantry into the upstairs bedroom, which I shared with my brother. Every single time I walked down those steps I was convinced a demonic Gladiator Centaur with bow and arrow in hand was going to shoot out of the attic door, pull three of four fiery arrows from his sheath and, in a machine gun cadence, proceed to shoot them towards my back. Convinced this was going to happen, I always sprinted down the steps like a boy possessed.

The second set of steps headed down into the basement. The steps had openings beneath each step. No carpet, no wood, just functional steps. Going down into the basement was never a problem. However, heading upstairs, was a big problem. I was convinced that as I reached the sixth set of steps, the WEREWOLF from THE HOWLING was going to shoot his hand through the open slats, snatch my ankle and squeeze with all its might. Convinced this was going to happen, I always bounded up the basement steps like a boy possessed – as well. "Why do you do that?!!" my mother would always scream.

Back to the night run...

My pace quickened. My blood pressure felt like it shot up another 10 points. Goosebumps covered my entire body anticipating a strike from the beast in the woods. However, after another inspection with my trusty light, the shadow revealed itself to be a large boulder. Phew! Instant death diverted once again.

I careened off the bike path and onto a dirt, running trail past a gargantuan steel dragon. The JABBERWOCKY from Alice in Wonderland???!!!! No, only the steel pulsing of a gas well going up and down, up and down. Chugging gas from the ground up into its steel basin.

The trail careened into an even darker forested umbrella. Blackness covered me like a cold blanket of Death. I clicked the highest shine function on my Energizer Headlamp.

The crunch of my steps on the hard pebbles and rocks was the only sound echoing into the eerie, wooded terror land. I thought of the movie PUMPKINHEAD. The green creature spawned by hate from some section of hell. I thought about the CENOBITES from HELLRAISER, led by Pinhead, the unflinching psychopaths from Hades. The  things that wanted to tear your soul apart. I glanced over into what I knew was an empty, dried up bog. For an instant, I thought I saw the menacing creatures waiting in the woods. Waiting for me to slightly step off the trail so they could tear my body from limb to limb, ripping each and every piece of my body until only a puddle of blood remained.

I closed my eyes. “Just movies,” I said to myself. “Only movies.” I opened my eyes and the creatures were gone.

Again, wanting this run to be over, I quickened my pace once again as I set up another hill, which turned slightly into a concrete path before opening up into a field of wheat, or hay, or simply tall grass. I wasn’t sure. I ran into a plume of fog, which slightly cooled my body. It felt like I was running into a thousand deathly souls roaming the Earth.

For a moment I was expecting the creature DARKNESS from the movie LEGEND to come through the fog, through the smoke; inserting his scabbard hand into my heart and ripping it into pieces.

This was supposed to be a 30-minute repast during my day. It was supposed to be my relaxing three-mile run. Instead, it was my own personal internal hell. My own personal demons terrorizing my every step.

Which reminds me...

Sometimes during my run, I think about death. I think about possibly dying when I’m older on one of these trails. Will my body be found? Will it lie there and slowly decay for years and years? What will people think when they come upon it?

Sometimes, even during my day runs, I look back and imagine a black figure gliding effortlessly through the trail, 50 yards or so behind me, matching my pace, waiting, anticipating that moment when I trip, my heart skips, I have a stroke or I simply stop breathing.

Back on the trail...

I came around the turn and approached a ubiquitous shadow; a blurry figure walking closer to me. This was the time that I wished for my glasses, or contacts or the fucking Lasik eye surgery. Anything for me to focus on the image in front of me.

Was this my time? Was this my death?  Was that the GRIM REAPER from THE MEANING OF LIFE with his long scythe waiting patiently for me to finish my run. Waiting patiently to take me away from my family, my kids and my not-so-bad life?

“Excuse me,” the creature said. Only it wasn’t a creature.

“Huh,” I said startled as I slowed to a brief walk, then stopped in front of the man’s face. He was an older gentleman, about 60 or 65. A just-as-old golden retriever stood next to him panting a rather jolly pant.

“Do you know how to get back to the main bike trail?”

I nodded and pointed in the direction I came. “Follow this loop and it will take you back to the trail.”

“Thank you so much,” the man said petting the top of his dog’s head. An odd two-second silence whisked between us. My mind started again. I imagined a knife in his back pocket. I imagined the OLDER GENTELMAN from the movie LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. The guy who killed in order to accumulate fresh blood for his young vampire princess. I took a slight step back from the man and the dog, which looked a bit angrier from the last second I looked at him.

“A little creepy out at this time of day, eh?” asked the old man.

I nodded.

“Your mind can play some crazy tricks on you that’s for sure” he said.

“You’re telling me,” I said. “Be careful.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” the old man laughed and patted his loyal dog on top of the head. “That’s why I have her to protect me.”

I looked at the dog and through about my dog, Otto; a loyal Rottweiler-Doberman mix that was the best dog in the world.

“Well, have a good run,” the old man smiled and started on his way. “And thank you.”

“You too,” I said and headed off to my car.

During my half-mile run back to my car, I thought about the old man. I thought about the ghosts and goblins that tormented my mind. I thought about my life, my dreams, my family and my job.

I thought about all the scary things that this world can throw at you day in and day out. And all of the things on this Earth that can just as easily take you away from it all.

I thought about my mother whispering in my ear before heading off to school. “Heck, every time you step outside of your house, you can get killed,” she said. “Just think of all the ways you can die in a day...”

For some reason those comments have stuck in my mind.

Today, I was able to outrun and outfox Pumpkinhead, the Cave Troll, the American Werewolf in London, the grim specter of Death and other creatures lingering and lurking in the back of my brain.

Tomorrow, I may not be so lucky.

Maybe I’ll go on an afternoon run instead.

A Warm Run in Bath.

On my way home from work, I stuck my head out of the window.

Mid 60's with a slightly warm wind.

Perfect running weather.

I hopped out of the car, kissed the kids on the forehead, made a beeline to the bedroom and tossed on my shorts, t-shirt, running shoes and bandana.

In less than a minute, my gladiator outfit was complete. I was ready for a run.

I hit the pavement with full gusto. But, before I could take a single stride, my neighbor pulled up beside me in his riding lawn mower.

"Howdy," he yelled.

I acknowledged him with a nod.

"Almost Deere Season," he yucked pointing toward the green and yellow beast under his ass. "You ready?"

"Yup," I said slightly annoyed and pointed toward the highway horizon. "Well, the road's a calling."

The sky was blue. The birds were chirping. Chainsaws were purring.

Spring was in full bloom in Bath, Ohio.

I inhaled and took a deep sniff of my surroundings.

Wild flowers. Freshly cut grass mixed with gasoline. A dead possum thawing out on the side of the road.

Ahhhhh, the smells of paradise.

I ran down the hill and dodged a beer can thrown out the window from a passing Porsche. A baby boomer returning from a hard day of 18 holes, no doubt.

The can clanked and clacked on the side of the road until it came to a complete stop in the mud. It was Labatt's Blue. The best selling Canadian beer in the world. Good brand. Bad tact.

"Thanks rich Bath dude who likes to drink and drive," I yelled as I put up my middle finger. "You rock."

I concentrated on the road. I concentrated on my running. I took deep breaths and let them out slowly, just like the September 2006 issue of Runner's World magazine told me to do.

For a brief moment, the world was my oyster. I closed my eyes and outstretched my hands in a Christ-like pose.

The rays of the sun warmed my cold, rickety bones shaking away the six-month Northeast Ohio winter. The warm air blew through my slowly receding hairline. "Ouch." I slapped at a sting on my arm. It was a dead misquito.

The blood dripping from my small wound let me know that the season was alive.

As I approached the bottom of the hill, I heard a scurry in the woods, followed by cracking branches and splashing water. Four deers hopped out of a brier bush and sailed into the woods. I could have sworn I saw turds fly out of one of the doe's butt.

"Fancy that," I thought. "I scared me up some game."

The beauty of nature indeed.

I careened into the graveyard to greet the dead bodies and wish them a happy Spring day.

"Hello Martin Douglas," I yelled to his gravestone. "Born January 3, 1920. Deceased September 20, 1985. Sixty-five years on this planet. Not too shabby."

"Hello Dolores Baker. Born May 21, 1905. Deceased June 17, 1940," I yelled at another gravestone. "Thirty-five years on this beautiful Earth...wait a minute. That's how old I am!

Suddenly I got depressed. Only three more months until I pass Dolores up on the annual birthday scale. Suddenly I got happy again.

"Ha Ha, Dolores," I whispered out of the side of my mouth to her decaying body six-feet under. "I'm almost beating you in the game of life."

I continued the loop, looked up from the ground and, suddenly, stopped in my tracks.

There was a car. Parked near the woods. Away from the gravestones. Next to the stream. And it was running in neutral.

I looked around for an old man (or an old woman) with flowers in hand kneeling and blubbering over a loved one's slab of stone. I found none.

"Who could it be?" I thought to myself. "Who could be parked in my graveyard?"

I decided to forge ahead and solve the mystery once and for all.

As I approached the car, I heard what sounded like Pink Floyd's The Great Gig In the Sky blaring from the speakers. The car was also moving side to side. Side to side. Side-to-side. In a rythmic motion. Almost to the music. As I got closer, I noticed a faint silhouette in the car.

Someone, or something, was inside.

As I slowly tip-toed beside the car, I slyly turned my head to see what was going on.

A full moon greeted me with a vertical "Hello." It was a dude's ass bobbing up and down. Up and down in the wide backseat of the car. Beneath him, I assumed, was a woman. The painted toenails gave her away.

I looked around for dug-up graves. There were none. More than likely, she was alive.

"Well, well, well," I thought to myself. "This lad was laying some backseat pipe to his girlfriend in the middle of a graveyard."

They didn't notice me. They didn't miss a beat. They were doing their thang without a care in the world.

Ahhhh...young love.

"Carry on my good man," I shouted to the gentleman in the car. "Carry on."

I, too, went on my way.

Yet as I headed out of the graveyard I couldn't stop myself from glancing back at the car one more time.

That's when I noticed the bumper sticker.

"Go Revere High!"

Screw Deere Season. It was Parking Season. Spring had officially sprung in Bath.

Oh, and for the parents who happen to be reading this blog...

Blue Toyota Corolla. Ohio License Plate #GVW 365.

Now you know where your kid was last night.

Running to run (and eating anything you want).

I ran track in high school. I remember clocking my first 400-meter dash in 50 seconds. It was my sophomore year. And I was pretty proud.

After that, I sucked.

One day, I remember coming into school the day after a track meet. My government teacher, Mr. Hill, saw me coming down the hall. His arms were crossed and he had this disappointed look on his face. I thought I had been busted for cheating.

Nope. That would've been to easy. He simply arched his arm and pointed his finger over to a bulletin board that posted the previous day's track meet times. Gulp!

Eimer - 400-meters - 1:06

A 66-minute 400-meter dash. Yep, pretty pathetic.

Suffice to say, the next year, I gave up track and field for wrestling. Then, my senior year, I pretty much did nothing except bag groceries and drink beer. It wasn't until my freshman year in college that I noticed a slight beer gut forming right above my nether regions.

That's when I started running to stay in shape.

Since that time, running has become an almost daily ritual for me.

I've run a couple marathons, some half-marathons and numerous 5k's. I've ran in rain, snow, sleet and hot sun. I've ran in in temperatures ranging from 100-degrees to zero degrees. I've ran up mountains, on pavement, in a desert and through the mud. I've even ran in a real-life rain forest.

All for the simple joy of running. Oh, and the fact that I don't want to be a fat ass.

Oh yeah, and to eat and drink anything I want whenever I want. Although that general philosophy has changed a bit over the years.

So imagine my shock when I came across this ESPN.com article about running streaks.

The story is about streak runners who've ran every single day for years. And I'm not talking two or three years. I'm talking over 30. Some of them have been running longer than I've been on this Earth.

In fact, Mark Covert, a 56-year-old teacher and cross-country coach at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, Calif., holds the longest active daily running streak of 39 years, 130 days.

Let me clarify. That's, at least one mile per day. Every single day. For almost 40 years.

These guys are the real deal Holyfield.

On a personal note, after college I kept a daily log of my runs. In the late 90's, I was going to try and run every single day for an entire year. As it turned out the heavy partying, hazy all-nighters and mind-numbing hangovers took their toll.

Sadly, I only made it a month.

Even that was pretty damn hard, especially from a psychological standpoint. Every single day I woke up, my mind started contemplating when and where I was going to get my daily run in.

That's why I think a year of everyday running can be a pretty draining experience, especially if you're on vacation.

That's also why, in my opinion, the streak runners' achievements outlined in the aobove article completely eclipse my dedication to running.

Call it insanity or a healthy addiction. But, I think these guys deserve major kudos for their achievement.

In fact, this has motivated me to attempt my one-year goal of consecutive daily runs.

However, that will have to wait a couple more years, until my two little kids are a little bit older.

Hell, maybe they'll run it with me.

To add to that, I can only hope their 400-meter-dash will be a little faster than mine as well.

Run To The Hills

My family moved to Bath, Ohio, in the Spring of 2007.

It's a small country town about 15 miles out of Akron. There are no cell-phone towers, no commercial eateries, no McDonalds and no strip shopping centers. All in all, it's a fairly quiet town with a great view of the stars every single night.

And, if you can dodge cars speeding 70 MPH through the countryside, it’s also runner’s paradise.

From the Cuyahoga Falls National Park to the Bath Nature Preserve to a local track at Revere High School (for night runs) and O'Neill Woods, the place is virtually designed for cross-country runners.

But what gets me really, really excited about running in Bath ... are the hills.

Ask any track and field/cross country runner and they'll tell you that If you want to lose weight, get conditioned and gain endurance, you should incorporate hills into your weekly running regimen.

Althought I have no facts to back this up, it's been said that former Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton ran steps and hills as his primary workout. Sure, he's dead. But, before meeting his make, he broke a ton of records in the NFL. So, I say if it's good enough for a Hall of Fame running back, it's good enough for me.

I finally got to head out onto the open highway and tackle my first Bath hill in March of 2007.

After lacing up my Asics running shoes, taking a shot of my inhaler and stretching, I walked out of my driveway and hit the pavement with full gusto.

About 100 yards into my run I careened a half-mile downhill. I then proceeded to run a half-mile on a paved road to Moore's Chapel cemetery. I proceeded to run the 1/4-mile loop of the cemetary - all the while being cheered on by Bath's previous living - then I hightailed it back home.

All in all, I was about a mile and a half away from the crib. Three miles in all.

However, stopping me from a fresh glass of water, and an after-run beer, was the initial 1/2 mile hill I had so effortlessly ran down.

As I approached the 70-degree hill, I slowed my jog, took a deep breath.

Like an extra from the movie Braveheart, I let out a battle scream and attacked the hill like a man possessed. Huffing and puffing. Huffing and puffing. I felt like the little engine that could. Chugga. Chugga. Chugga. Chugga. "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can."

More importantly, I could feel the blubber in my stomach pound back and forth and virtually burn away with each foot-stomp to the ground.

My breathing deepened. My legs started to burn. I was fatigued. I was almost to the top.

I stopped.

Hill - 1
Eimer - 0

I just got my ass kicked by a hill.

Breathing like a porno star after a two-hour sex session, I walked the rest of the way. However, as punishment to myself for not succeeding, I added another half-mile to my run at the top. It was a win-win situation. Or, depending on how you look at it, a lose-lose situation.

Barring a nuclear bomb leveling Bath - I knew that damn, dirty hill was going to be there tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. So, sooner or later, I knew I was going to kick its ass. And I've done that on multiple occasions.

Now, after a summer of tackling the hills of Bath, I make it to the top about 85% of the time. Not too bad considering my runs have been limited to about 2-3 miles every other day.

As I brace for a winter of 'not-alot-of-running' due to two kids under two years old, nasty Northeast Ohio weather and Day Light Savings Time, I expect I'll have a similar experience next Spring.

But you can count on me to be in tip-top thong shape before the pools open on Memorial Day 2008.