A Ten Minute Mile Doesn't Beat a Rottweiler

 

It didn't used to be that 3 daily miles on a treadmill satisfied my running needs.  Indeed, I didn't even count miles on a treadmill until my "career" ended in the 1980s.  I also used to like to make every run a little different than any other run.  Sometimes that meant changing just a little bit of my usual runs, and sometimes it meant making up new runs.  Rob Whiteside and I tried to create many new runs my Senior year at PSU, but I doubt any of them lasted past Rob's Senior year.

Even when I left for graduate school in Philadelphia, I often got tired of the same old runs every day to Fairmount Park and back. We tried numerous times to create additional route to Penn, South Philly etc.  Sometimes these were successful, and sometimes not, but at least they weren't boring.  So when I tried to combine our Penn run with our Fairmount Park run, at least one of my fellow students took me up on it.  This was before Map Quest, Google Maps and other convenient mapping software, as it was before most software altogether!

So it seemed an easy and convenient route to run to Penn, around the campus and then directly to the Philadelphia Zoo and Fairmount Park.  There it was on the folded auto map, right in front of us!  Nearly a straight line, nothing in the way to impede our triumphant new route.  Except...

The route happened to go right past the site of the 1978 confrontation between the Philadelphia Police and M.O.V. E., a group not inclined to care much for 2 skinny (I still was, I swear!), white, shirtless runners trying to get from Penn to Fairmount Park.  The site of the confrontation was still there in 1982, as it was razed in the confrontation and no one dared build on it again. The empty lot was a sort of shrine, even to those African Americans who didn't buy into the whole MOVE credo. Across the street from the burned out site was a young boy being yanked along by a large Rottweiler dog (pit bulls weren't the "go-to" dog in those days).  When the boy couldn't manage to hold the dog any longer he just blurted out "Sic Whitey" and The Game was Afoot.  Sherlock and I had no other options than to outrun a crazed Rottweiler or be devoured, with bystanders laughing the whole time.  Luckily we had enough of a start and Rottweilers must not be trained in middle distance skills, as we managed to outrun the beast with the fastest mile I ever ran post-college.  I would estimate a nice 4:40 effort with a few weaves and bobs along the route. Even a few spectators toward the end, after the dog gave up but we hadn't, were impressed with the effort and urgency of our run.  The Philadelphia Zoo still brings a smile to my lips, and it has nothing to do with the exhibits.

Two years later, as we watched an entire neighborhood burn to the ground from the roof of our apartment in the second Philadelphia Police vs. MOVE fiasco, we decided to take West Philadelphia off the running map for good. Luckily, I may add, as a 4:40 mile was out of the question by then!  A ten-minute mile won't beat a Rottweiler!

And I have even a second Bear Story I may have to write up one of these days!