Ghosts in the Graveyard

I had a fun time coming up with a title for this entry. Several possibilities came to mind as I ran my 32 minute recovery run this morning. Some of the discarded titles:

"Scaring up the Ghosts"

"Have Mace; Will Run"

"School's Out for Summer"

"Dancing with the Dead"

This week has been so crazy. The older kids had exams so I've had to arrange my schedule to pick them up at odd times. This morning they got out at 9:30 (last day). After dropping my daughter at school at 8:15 then running downtown to drop something off for my husband (no, not his wallet this time, LOL) I was afraid I would never get a little 3 mile run in. And believe me, I needed it. I have a serious case of PMS and the road rage was kicking into high gear. With a haircolor appointment at 12:00 my running options were seriously limited. I know I've mentioned this before, but I won't run for at least two days after having my hair cut and colored. I expect it to look nice for at least that long given what I pay for it.

Anyway, my solution was to park the car at Walnut Hills and run a loop from the high school. The only problem was that the school is in a really dicey neighborhood. The kids are warned all the time not to leave campus. So, I grabbed the pepper spray and off I went, figuring I would be relatively safe running in the street rather than the sidewalk. I don't know what use I thought the pepper spray might be because I was probably more likely to get shot than attacked.

After a mile, I was in a much better area and I turned down a road that would take me back to the school. As I was running along, I came to the Walnut Hills Cemetary. "Hey," I thought, "Isn't this where the CC team does their hill workouts? Sure is! I think I'll go there too." Why not run in the cemetary? Nice paved roads, well-maintained and attractive gardens, trees, shade. Besides, I've never run in this cemetary in the daytime before! That's right. I've been here before. 2005. Halloween. "Run Like Hell 5k."

Upon exiting the cemetary, I headed back to school, this time to the front of the building. It was now 9:30 and I could hear the principal (the principal is your pal, LOL) giving the last announcements of the year, well, forever for him as he is retiring. I realized that I didn't have another 1/2 mile in me to run all the way around the school to the back parking lot so I walked up the steep, steep stairway and right in the back door and out the front door. Hello Mr. Security Guard. You know me right? Sweaty mom of 2 teenage boys? Good thing the boys didn't see me. They'd be mortified.

To sum up: First run since marathon. Feeling fine.