the Way of the Turtle

CRUNCH TIME... BLEAH!
Wednesday, February 16, 2011

What a week... I've wanted to get out for a run every night and just haven't had the time or in some cases the energy. We split the school year into three terms, and the winter term ends next week... which means my kids are getting ready to take exams on what we've been studying for the past few months and I'm trying to not only help them prepare for that but also grading work they've submitted so they can use it to help them study. Lots of late evenings giving them extra help and then even later nights at home working means not much time left for getting outdoors.

I'm reminded of the following quote, which I posted several years ago after reading the book it's from:

"One recent morning, while running, I had a vision of a bear careening slo-mo through Yellowstone on a National Geopgraphic TV special. Bears are big, but they sure can move. Everyone knows a gazelle is built for running -- and yet you wouldn't want that bear chasing you, would you? Then I remembered that the Colorado Department of Wildlife allocates one hundred square miles for each of our state's brown bears. Any less than that, and you end up with 'nuisance' bears who eat garbage and start fights. I related to this implicitly. If I am prevented from crashing through the underbrush, I too eat garbage and snarl a lot."

-- Robin Chotzinoff, People Who Sweat

I definitely need to get outside and crash through the underbrush (or at least through the woods) so that maybe I'll eat less garbage... and before I start snarling a lot. Thank heavens we have two snowshoe races coming up this weekend!

-JMH