Shark Attack

I woke up in a daze, my alarm beeping mad.  It was 7 am, not too early, but I wasn’t ready to be awake yet, let alone go for a run.  I rubbed my sleepy eyes anyway, put on some running clothes, and tested my blood sugar.  131.  Perfect to start a 3 mile jog, along with a 15 carb juice carton.  Yum.  Nothing shouts, “Good morning and wake up, Erin!” like 15 grams of straight sugar.  I was ready to go.

Backstory of Shark Attack: My sister, Jessica, is a part of her high school’s cross country team.  They have a practice almost every morning at 6:30.  Can you believe it?  6:30?  That is a seriously ungodly hour of the day, almost unthinkable to me, who is probably the person in this family who sleeps in the latest--which is only like 8:00, sometimes 9, but never 10.  My family isn’t just one to sleep all day.  And although I am supposed to be a teenager, I don’t really feel like I need that much more sleep than when I was a kid aged 10.  That is probably because of my lack of growing, which my year’s growth of 1.78 centimeters proves.  Anyway, this whole week my sister is off practice, typically meaning that she would sleep in until 9, maybe even 8.  But not in my go-go-go family.  She wakes up around 7:15 on her own¸ no alarm, no dog opening your door and licking you to death (which my little Lucy does to me.  She’s taken advantage of the fact that my door can open by just simply pushing it, meaning that she strolls in whenever she wants--when I’m dozing off at night, sleeping in the morning, even when I’m changing in the afternoon.  Privacy went out the window when we brought our baby schnoodle home just about a year ago.)

At 7:15, my mom and I were just about to head out the door and run our tushes off.  The same time my sister walked down the stairs saying she was going to run the same route as us as soon as she was ready.  She assured us that we could go on ahead without her, that she’d be fine.  But my mom was torn, couldn’t decide whether we should go or not (think you know where I got my indecisive nature from now?  Mommy!).  She was mulling this over in the garage with me and my dad who was just about to drive off to work.

“Go on ahead without her.  Have you seen how fast Jessica goes now?  It’s the Cross Country.  She’ll be able to catch up,” my dad said.

“You’re right,” my mom and I both said aloud, knowing that we needed to head out now, knowing our pace is pretty different from hers, if you know what I mean (although, if I was to brag, I would let you know that I have a 6:26 mile time…  I would only say that if I were bragging, though…  Which I’m totally not…  I think you get the point…  Hopefully you do… J  By the way, my mom runs 5 days a week, which is where I get my fastness.  Bragging again!).

So off we went, like horses racing, horses just let out of their cages, running to feel free.  That sounded so deep, huh?  We jogged down our hill, over a short and flat stretch, and up a narrow, steep hill.  As we were crossing another quick and straight length, I finally allowed myself to turn around, to see if Jessica was close to us, if she was even in view.  She was in view, she was indeed.  And she was gaining speed, covering the already short distance between us.  Jaws music played in my mind, seeming so appropriate for the position I was in.  And because of that frightening tune in my head, I said to my mother, “I think we should stop, let her catch up.”  Part of me spoke those words because of the music, the fear of her sneaking up from behind, scaring the you-know-what out of me.  But most of it was that I wanted to stop, take a break, catch my breath.  I love to run, I’m good at running, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t dream of taking a quick stopping break in the middle of my “training” (if you asked me what I’m training for I would tell you I do not know.  It just sounded so professional, so elite, I just had to say it, you know?).

“No, let’s keep going.  She’ll catch up with us soon,” replied my mom.  I was ready for the challenge.  The challenge to see how long it took my Cross Country sister to get to us.

From The Help

And she did.  Pretty soon after.  Crazy.  But, I did tie her up the last hill in a full-on sprint.  It was actually kind of fun to end the run with a hill sprint that I did pretty good on.  Yay!  And although I found a HUGE spider hiding behind my shampoo bottle later, I had a good rest of the day.  I went to see The Help.  I took a look around, as we sat in our seats in the theater.  I see one man, I think to myself.  Good thing my dad didn’t come.  I took a closer look around me and saw absolutely zippo kids.  I’m kind of flattered that I read such a mature book, but feeling a little bit out of place.  But I knew it didn’t matter that there were none of my kind J because I loved the book.  But to be honest, I didn’t love the movie.  I know that you can’t put every detail from a 400 page book into a two hour film, but it seemed like some vital points were missed.  My sister, mom and I wondered that if we all hadn’t read the book, would we have understood the plot.  I overheard, to what my mom guessed was a book club, saying the same thing after the flick.  It still was a good movie, but after just finishing that great book, it was a little bit of a let-down (ugh!  I just thought of the dead spider in my shower!  It makes me cringe!).