Let's file this story under the heading "Only in Ireland..."
I went out for my morning run in a thick Ireland fog. The sun wasn't quite up yet. No one else was out on the street. It was eerie yet peaceful. In other words, a typical Irish morning.
This was my fourth straight day of running, so my body was sore. To urge myself through the exercise (torture?) I promised I'd go at a slow pace and only do 10km. My body agreed to those terms.
About a km and a half in, as I struggled to take the steepest hill on this course, I heard this freakish scream behind me (no, the view of me from behind is not frightening!).
I turned just in time to see a man with a crazed look in his eye and a massive axe in his hands, running straight for me (and, yes, I was jealous that he was running much faster than I had been!).
I froze. "What the hell are you doing?" I demanded in the thickest of South African accents (I like to bust it out when I need to intimidate someone... like a dude trying to behead me).
"I saw you trudging along all limping and moaning in the fog," he replied "I thought you were a zombie!"
Oh. Well, that made perfect sense. I apologized for turning his own weapon on him, helped him to his feet, and explained that I was just a half-asleep runner with a bum ankle.
We laughed, I thanked him for his dedication to keeping the streets safe from zombies (this is Ireland after all!), and he invited me to his weekly "Walking Dead" watching party.
To my fellow joggers... we live in an anxious time. If you're going to run on a foggy morning, be ready, for there are men with axes who might mistake you for the undead.
This is why we always stretch before we run...
