His Huntin' Name Will Be Jackson

A couple weeks ago I went on a long run in East Zion. I needed to clock 14 miles, and we were staying in a home 15.5 miles away from the gas station in at Mt. Carmel junction, so I had Tyler drive me 1.5 miles down the road. I had slept in until 6:00 am and had forgotten a bottle, which meant Tyler was going to have one grumpy Finn to contend with by the time I was done. Tyler encouraged me to go anyway, and we jumped into the car.

A 6:00 run in Salt Lake is a little dark, but with a reflector vest and city light, it's not that bad. A 6:00 run in East Zion, precisely 14 miles away from the nearest street lamp, is very, very dark. Our approach into the wilderness looked like this:

My danger signals, although my mother-in-law doubts I have any, began to alarm. I had my reflector vest, but I knew that until the car had already run over me, there would be very little light to reflect. Plus it was dark. I'm not really a fan of the dark. Needless today, I didn't really find Tyler's comment, "I feel like I'm a serial killer and I'm dropping your body off in the woods," all that funny.

"Well," Tyler said, "Run ahead a little bit and see what it's like. I'll come pick you up if you need it." Once I left his headlights, it looked like this:

"I'm pretty sure I'm fine," I told him. "I mean, I can't see the road, but I think I'll be okay." Tyler looked at me skeptically. "Really," I assured him. "The sun will rise within the hour, and by the time I get to the main road, it will be light."

It wasn't until Tyler was gone that I remembered that my mind does crazy things when I'm alone and in the dark. I still couldn't see the road, but I was pretty sure I could see two masses that were darker masses than the rest of the dark masses.

And then I remembered the time that I drove along this very road at night and rethought my position on hunting. There were too many deer in the world, I decided. I also remembered driving along Utah State Route 9 and passing 6 inches from a pair of bison.

And then something howled.

And finally, I remembered another long run another morning in along the Provo River Trail, when Marissa, Tyler, and I decided to run from Utah Lake into Provo at 4:00 in the morning. There weren't any street lights then either. As the three ran along the path, we heard something splash in the river next to us. It might have been a June sucker, but we were pretty sure it was a rapist. We picked up speed and Marissa and I giggled nervously. After about two miles, we heard the splash again, which clearly meant the rapist was following us. "My husband is with us, dirty rapist!" I yelled. "My LARGE husband. He's 6'4", and you wouldn't like him!"

I decided to employ the same tactic with the serial-killing bison. "Buffalo!" I yelled. "Pack of wolves! I don't care how big you are or how many runners you've slaughtered along this road, because I have a husband. A big husband. With a gun!"

Picturing big, bad, gun-totin' Tyler was funny enough kept me going the next 13 miles.