When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It!

First Saturday in December, 2015. We were running by the Coke Plant and there it was. A fork. Bent up a little bit from being run over. I knew what I had to do. I picked it up. 

Three months later, I was running the Savin Rock Marathon in West Haven, Connecticut. It's a double course (it used to be just a half marathon), flat for the first 4 miles, hilly for 5+ miles then flat for the last 3 or so. I was running with a new friend around mile 7 when my foot hit a piece of metal. It jingled against the pavement and I looked down. Another fork. Obviously run over a few times. I picked it up and carried it for the last six miles of the loop and stuck it in the ground near a fire hydrant by the finish line while I went out for my final 13 miles.  I had come to a fork in the road. So I had to take it.

Yogi Berra, the legendary baseball player who just died sometime in 2015, I think, was not only one of the greats of the game, he was also famous for his interesting quotes. One of his most famous was, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." And, being "one of those guys," it seemed to be the thing to do.

A year later, in Fort Smith, Arkansas for another marathon, somewhere around mile 14, was another one. A nice black handle on it this time. Remembering Yogi's famous words, I stuck it in my little waist pack and took it with me.

Running marathons. Sometimes we need distractions. Sometimes, that distraction comes from a fork in the road. Sometimes it's even a literal fork. Whatever gets us through the miles.