I went for a run this afternoon. It ended at the park down the street. The one with the tennis courts and the basketball hoops. Three miles at a nine minute pace. Well, nine minutes and two seconds, to be exact. I always feel guilty rounding up. And by “up”, I mean, to the better number. In this case, it’s technically rounding down.

I got a drink of water from the fountain. It’s a good working water fountain – nice pressure, strong stream, clean, cold water. You can tell a lot about a town by its water fountains.

My heart rate was coming down from around 185 bpm. The average for the full run was closer to 160 bpm. I’m not rounding in this case. I just can’t remember. And I don’t particularly care to look back at my phone to find out. Because I’m not using my phone right now. And it doesn’t really matter. Actually, it was 169 bpm. I know because I was going to write that I can’t check that information in the limited version of the Runkeeper app on my Apple Watch. But I wasn’t sure if that was true. So I checked. And there it was.

I generally don’t run for speed. I run for pleasure. I think it’s good for me and it makes me feel good. I like running more than lifting. I used to hate running. I’m still trying to figure out how I can learn to like lifting like I like running. No answers as of yet.

The reason my heart rate was higher at the end of the run than on average is because I gunned it a bit for the last half mile or so. I don’t do that all the time. A lot of people do that, but I heard once that the end of an experience has an outsized impact on your memory of that experience, so it’s good to make the end part positive for things you want to remember positively so that you’ll do them some more. In the context of running, if you leave yourself totally gassed by gunning it at the end, you’ll remember it as being a lot harder than it was. Not fun. On the other hand, if you make the end easy, you’ll remember the whole run as easier than it was, even if you were running hard the whole time before that. I’m not sure that any of this is true, but it makes sense, so I’ve kept it in mind for several years. Regardless, I felt like finishing fast today.

I started walking back home along the sidewalk between the parking lot and the woods and I heard some plopping on grass behind my right hip, low to the ground. I turned around to discover that it was a big fluffy bunny responsible for the sound. It wasn’t big in absolute terms. I don’t want to make it seem like some giant freak bunny or something. But it was about as big as any bunny I’ve ever seen, as far as I can recall at least. Its body alone was about the size of an NFL football. You probably are accustomed to throwing smaller footballs. NFL footballs are quite big. It was probably about the length of my elbow to the tip of my middle finger, just in its normal posture. I didn’t really see it stretch or lunge. And it was proportionally big to it’s length. It wasn’t fat or anything, but it certainly wasn’t skinny. Plump would be a fair description. Thick.

In addition to its notable size, I would also say it was an abnormally good looking bunny. Too cute to call a rabbit. I don’t throw around the word “cute” that often. But this was a really plush and fluffy bunny. Clean too. It was honestly a little concerning because it made me think it might be a domesticated bunny lost in the wild. It looked as fresh as a puppy after a grooming. I’ve never had any interest in owning a rabbit, but I would have taken this guy into my house if he wanted, or she. I think it was a he. I’m almost certain it wasn’t a they. But who knows.

Something notable about this experience was that I did not have my phone on me because I have not been keeping my phone on me recently. To be fair, I’ve run without my phone a lot over the last few years, before this new, more general no phone thing. That was the primary reason I started wearing an Apple Watch again. I wanted to be able to go for a run and listen to a podcast without bringing my phone with me. Running with nothing in your pockets is great. Today I didn’t listen to anything actually. I didn’t even bring my headphones. 27 minutes and 6 seconds without any audio entertainment might sort of be regarded as a psycho move these days, but I’ve been doing that a bit more recently. It’s fine. You can hear yourself breathe and watch yourself think. Old school.

Because I did not have my phone on me, I couldn’t take a picture of the hare. There was nothing to do really except hang around or keep moving. I decided to hang around. It was really something to see this bunny. I started about 7 or 8 feet away from it probably. And I watched it eat the tops off clovers. It seemed to be having a grand ole time. I am trying to think of the human equivalent of its situation. I can’t come up with anything great. It was basically just hopping around eating the tops off clovers. It looked like heaven for a rabbit.

I didn’t want to scare it. There was no need for an unnecessary adrenaline rush. But I decided to try to get closer. I crouched down and grabbed a clover with a long stem and threw it about halfway between us. The bunny noted my action. It didn’t seem scared at all so I got closer and reached out with another clover. I forget the exact sequence of events but penultimately I got it to eat one of the clovers that I threw. And, finally, it actually touched the clover that I was holding with its nose. It didn’t actually eat it though. I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t a good one.

The nose touch was enough for me so I stood up and started walking away. I was surprised to see it actually followed me for 10 yards or so. Maybe it became fond of me over the course of the five minutes or so that we were hanging out. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Either way, I circled back to grab another clover to try to feed it again but by the time I turned around it was gone, back in the woods. I was relieved actually because the way I was headed was towards the street and I didn’t want it to follow me towards traffic. It’s better off in the woods.

I posted on Warpcast the other day, “Crazy what happens when you don't have your phone on you and come across something photoworthy. Instead of rushing to pull your phone out to capture the moment in a photo you are unlikely to revisit later, in a way that pales in comparison to the actual experience, you just experience and appreciate the moment itself.”

That was what happened to me today. It was nice, but I got to thinking about where that desire to take a photo comes from, and I think there may be something more to it, for better or worse. There’s some part of it that is just trying to capture the moment, and it doesn’t really work, so it seems kind of dumb. But there’s another part that I think comes from a desire to share the experience with others, and I don’t think that’s so bad or wrong.

I went to a baseball game by myself once and I remember saying how I enjoyed it but it would have been better with friends. I think that’s the case for a lot of experiences, most of them probably, but also not all. To take a picture on my phone could have helped me communicate the experience, but it’s kind of just the fastest and easiest and laziest way to do it. There are other, maybe better, ways to communicate it as well, like storytelling or long-form writing, like this.

Had I had my phone on me, I would have taken a picture and shared it with my wife. I would have told her the story and showed her the picture, and that would have been that. But I didn’t have my phone, so I couldn’t do that. Without an easy outlet, my desire to share this experience needed to find a new means to that end. It inspired me to write, and so I did.

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. I don’t have a picture, but this was more than 1,000 words.