Early on Monday morning, around 3:30 am, I awoke with my heart thudding out of my chest. I’d been having a nightmare. I have nightmares rarely — maybe two times a year — so I know I’m particularly anxious about something when I do. In this case, I was out on a run, but it was at night. I was running through a nearly-empty parking lot when I spied, emerging from the bushes, a huge bear. It was lumbering right toward me. I hid behind a small car, peeping through the windows, only to see the bear coming closer and closer. As I was debating whether or not to try crawling underneath the car, the bear started coming around to my side of the car. [cue me waking up screaming]
Trust me. You do not want to have this particular dream.
While I’m not totally sure what that was about (I have so many sources of anxiety in my life at the moment!), I suspect it had to do with my long-delayed followup with an endodontist scheduled for later that day to discuss a suspicious issue with one of my lower teeth. I won’t bore you with the details, but it turns out that I have extra roots in my lower teeth, which can look like massive disease on an x-ray. She thinks it’s nothing and sent me on my merry way. I think she knew I was pissed off last time I saw her because she didn’t even charge me.
So, while sometimes the bear eats you, sometimes you eat the bear.
This morning I had another bad dream, but it hardly qualified as a nightmare. Nightmares are not usually funny. In this one I was competing in a huge outdoor track meet. The stadium was full and I was arriving with my team for the opening ceremony. One of my teammates was freaking out because she’d forgotten her inhaler. It was Shannon Rowbury. My first thought wasn’t, “What the fuck am I doing in a meet with Shannon Rowbury?” (which it should have been), but instead, “Shannon didn’t tell me she had asthma. I wonder why.” That was followed by, “I guess if I’m here then I must be pretty fast.”
I was wearing lemon-yellow sweat pants. Not snazzy track pants even. No, they were the awful, thick kind that you’d pick up at Wal-Mart to prepare for an eating binge, an extended bout with the flu, or to be vomited on by a baby. Or all three.
Yanking them down, I discovered that I’d neglected to put on my shorts. [cue crowd going wild]
Filed under: elites, everyday life, humor, meets |
Races Like a Girl 
Nice dreams! Not so.
It could mean anything, of course, but perhaps the being who naturally a natural runner you but your bears on your way come across as wanting to see? May declare that you are much faster you sure you want to believe and that if that nature in your own runner would emerge more naturally you will get that speed to be sure in it?.
Do not know if this is true horn ;-).
On to the good dreams.
I have no idea what dreams mean but your second one is hilarious 🙂 Maybe it means you should push yourself to go faster than you think you can?
I like both your interpretations. Can I get off the couch now?
Ooh, I still have four baby teeth. You can lend me some of your roots and I’ll pop them in my molars and that will work out just as well as a pantsless track meet.
Last running dream I remember was a few weeks ago, doing the 5th Avenue Mile in Central Park. Not only is that wrong, I ran really slow.
The bear eating you and you eating the bear is one of my favourite running sayings. On my long run this morning the bear just nibbled on me.
The second dream is a deleted scene from Scary Movie.
[…] Those crazy running dreams. Like showing up at a race naked late. […]
If dreams are wishes the heart makes, then….I dunno what’s up with you. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!