It was 5:45 in the morning and I was sitting in the Jeep outside the house where Heidi had been babysitting the previous evening waiting for her to come out. I was driving her and an old high school friend to Cuyahoga Valley National Park where they would each be running a relay half of a half marathon…or a little more than 6.5 miles. I would be the photographer and hopefully manage to keep their warm-up clothing dry, though the forecast was ominous.
I was startled by a knock on my window. I rolled it down to see a man standing outside my car. I wondered if he wasn’t some early morning walker out in the neighborhood and wondering why I was parked in a neighbor’s drive, but he offered a quick explanation.
“My car broke down at Monticello and Green and I was wondering if you could give me a lift,” he said.
I’m a soft touch for helping distressed folks and I was prepared to help this one, but something rang false. We were a half mile off Wilson Mills Road and it seemed rather peculiar that he would be walking this side street looking for a ride when he would have walked past more than one open service station where he could have tried to hitch a ride or secure some other kind of help. I asked him why he was back here.
“Oh…I live around the corner and I was just walking back to get the car when I saw you pull in here,” he offered. Again…I tend to want to believe people until they prove to be untrustworthy. I told him I’d give him a lift part way and told him to climb in the back, though my radar was still on high alert.
Heidi got in the front seat and asked about our passenger. I told her I was taking him as far as Bishop Road. This triggered another response from him.
“Where’s Bishop Road?” he asked.
I turned in my seat, looked him in the eye and noticed the faint smell of alcohol. “Get out of my car,” I said coldly.
“Hey man…I just need a ride…”
“I said get…out…of…my…car!”
He quickly exited and I waited until he left the driveway before backing out. I told Heidi to call ‘911’ and when she handed me the phone, I related my story to the Mayfield Village Police. I gave them a description of the man and they said they would send cars out immediately. Puzzled by everything, Heidi asked what had made me tell him to get out.
“He said his car was on Monticello and Green and he lived in this neighborhood, but he didn’t know where Bishop Road (a major thoroughfare) was. Up until then I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when he said that I knew he was lying,” I said.
It was a dumb move to have let him in the car in the first place. I tend to think I can handle any situation, and I handled this one, but it could have gotten out of control easily. He’d been drinking and he was definitely lying about his situation. I don’t know what became of him, but I heard the squad cars coming and I’m guessing he’d have trouble explaining his presence to the police.
We drove to the race site and I spent the next several hours trying unsuccessfully to stay dry. It was in the forties and the wind was blowing. Heidi ran first and Janet and I hiked to the 3-mile mark to take pictures. We found an aide station there with the Woodridge Cross Country Girls Team handing out water to the runners. They were getting soaked and I decided to help them by filling cups with water as the runners approached. We talked and I discovered they had qualified to next week’s State Championships. I worked the station with them until Heidi ran by and after some quick pictures, Janet and I returned to the starting line where she would receive Heidi’s bracelet and run the second leg of the relay.
The runners were all soaked to the bone as they passed though none seemed to be suffering from the ordeal. Running warms you and other than their hands, most seemed comfortable. When Heidi finished her leg, she was happy with her 9-minute per mile effort, but her hands were little blocks of ice. We hiked back to the aid station to get some pictures of Janet and for me to help out some more. By the time we returned to see Janet finish, I calculated that I’d hiked about five miles in a chilling rain. My hands were frozen from holding an umbrella, but the hiking was enough to keep me warm.
It was a well-organized event, offering the runners hot soup along with other food staples, at the finish. Both of the girls were shivering though, so we returned to the Jeep and I took them to Heidi’s place where I made French toast for us all. I was chilled to the bone and when I returned home, decided to climb under the covers for a nap. I’d wanted to rake the leaves, but the rain continued to fall all day and evening and I decided I’d settle for hiking the running course as my day’s workout.
Hike Duration: 75 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 80 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 350.
No comments:
Post a Comment