"There were not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer."

It's one thing to come face to face with a funnel cloud, turkey buzzard, or even the gravel flying behind a speeding car while you're running on a dirt road, but it turns out there are some equally deadly but much smaller airborne terrors.  Work ended, I headed to the garage to put my running shoes on, and was surrounded by a cloud of wasps.  I still had 2/3rds of a canister of Raid handy from last year, which I hate to use, but those little devils are taking up residence in a very strategic place between me and the great outdoors.  I drained the can, but still found one in one of my shoes.  Eeek!  And I thought blisters were bad...

After I battled the wasps and filled my shoes with feet rather than preliminary hornet nesting materials, I took to the trails and felt truly inspired.  The goal for today was 5 miles, but as I closed in on the finish line I just wanted to keep going.  I was thinking about all those wasps I had battled just to get my shoes on, and about Lisbeth Salander, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in my favorite books and movies from 2011. Lisbeth, nicknamed Wasp, is one powerful heroine, and just pondering some of her adventures kept me motivated. I kept laughing at one of my favorite quotes attributed to her character from the books: "There were not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer."  I wonder how the girl nicknamed Wasp would deal with the cloud in my carport!  I continued for another circuit. It was a great run on a wonderful evening.

3/21/12 - 7.0 miles | 89 min | 4.7 mph | 764 kcal