Posting daily at 1pm central about all kinds of things. One day it's dating, the next it's TV commercials. I hope you're entertained. Professional photos on SmugMug – https://benwilder.smugmug.com
I get that Hurricane Irma is serious and everything, I really do, but how many times have we heard about Barbuda in the last week? I mean, besides Robert De Niro, has anyone ever even heard of Barbuda?
Did Barbados and Bermuda have a baby?
So many questions about the tiny island in the Caribbean, home of just over 1,600 people. I guess if the Beach Boys didn’t mention it in “Surfin’ USA,” then I’m lost. That’s on me. I need to brush up on my geography evidently.
-Out of the Wilderness
Ever since the trip to Missouri where my brother and I ran 5Ks and worked out almost every day, he and I have gotten back into running, me in Nashville and him in Orlando. I can’t really speak for him in regards to how much he’s running but I lace up maybe 3 or 4 times a week now. I have a goal and a secret goal (which means you can’t say a word about it!). The very public goal that you can talk to your co-workers and friends about is defeating my personal 5K record of 19 minutes and 42 seconds, set 11 years ago. The more I run now, it feels like that was way back when dreams were possible. OK, here’s the secret goal that you can only mumble to yourself when you’re alone in the closet… my secret goal is that I want to beat my brother. He’s been more athletic than me forever (again, never ever admit to anyone under any circumstance that I said any of this), so when I can beat him at something, I take the time to relish it like you’d do if you were taking a bath in strawberry jelly. Really enjoy every second of it, and maybe make a sandwich if you have some peanut butter lying around.
Here’s a clip of my bro and I running in Missouri back in July…
I’ve got to train for the day when he runs a 5K under 22, then under 21, then under 20. The only way I know how is to get out there and run!
So I have a few landmarks I’d like to hit. The first, and it’s proving to be difficult, is to break the 22-minute mark on a 3.1-mile run. Just yesterday I had my best time at 22:11. I’m not afraid to admit my disappointment. I was disappointed, there I said it. It felt like biting into a fresh homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich, like, you used the good peanut butter and everything, only to realize there’s no peanut butter on it at all. Total downer.
But something good came out of the run yesterday. I did well with a silly strategy I’ve used in the past: pick two points along the path and between the two, run faster. After the second point, slow back down to a cruise pace. The plan is to widen the gaps in those points the more I train. Yesterday the two points were a sign about crawfish (I was running alongside a creek) and a bridge, so that’s where the title of this blog came from. I conversed with myself, maybe I can’t keep a 6-minute mile pace the whole time, but I can do it from crawfish to bridge one, right?
Right.
I haven’t broken the 22-minute 5K yet but I’ll be sure to post more as I get closer to that landmark moment, and hopefully eventually accomplishing my goal and my secret goal (shhhhhh!)… so here’s to training and running and reaching goals and brothers and pb&J sandwiches!
-Out of the Wilderness
I had fun making this one… enjoy!
What do you get when you’ve been dog-sitting through Rover.com for almost 2 years? A lot of stories! I’ve had a wide range of big dogs, small dogs, wide dogs, long dogs, young dogs, old dogs, fun dogs, hot dogs… wait, what?
I’ve had all kinds of dogs of all ages but one thing I’ve seen so much of is also a stereotypical trait of dogs. When they decide to lay down, they walk around in a neat, tight circle about a hundred times before plopping down. Why do they do this?
What I’ve found is that it’s an instinctual behavior (like rubbing on dead insects or one dog peeing on another dog’s pee) meant to keep themselves warm and protected.
I have 2 dogs, Piper and Asia, and they do this all the time. I’ve also observed that after they circle around and lay down, maybe 20 or 30 minutes later they sprawl out. I haven’t asked them about it, but my guess is that it’s not very comfortable to sleep in such a tight position and once they feel safe and warm, they loosen up.
Dogs were domesticated thousands of years ago, but I love when a bit of that wild wolf comes out in them. Even if they’re curling up on a king-sized mattress under a light breeze from a ceiling fan. You go wild dogs, go on with your bad selves!
-Out of the Wilderness
I grabbed the slip of paper from the store clerk. After she read out what was printed on it, the customer behind me declared, “You won the lottery!
The rest of that week I was on cloud 9, but I wasn’t any richer. Because I didn’t actually win the lottery, it was even better. The receipt the CVS store clerk handed me had a coupon for 40% off any one item in the entire store.
THAT’S ALMOST HALF OFF!!!!!!!
For a few days, it felt like Christmas. But then it was Friday night, the special coupon expiring the very next day.
Excitedly, I parked my car, practically skipping through the sliding entrance doors around 8pm. I carefully shopped through the tech section. The pet section. Heck, I even browsed through the senior citizen section. I had no idea there were so many different styles of adult diapers. I could by some FOR 40% OFF!!!
The store was closing in 15 minutes. Where had the time gone? My forehead beads with sweat. Anxiety ramps up. I’m so indecisive. So with thousands of products to choose from, I narrowed it down to….
…this.
And that was my Friday night.
-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 