SOMETIMES IT "PAYS" TO RUN SLOW.

I know I've mentioned before that I often find money, mostly change, when I'm out running in the morning. There could be many reasons why people lose money at night, the main one being when they drop it, whether they know it or not, the darkness makes it impossible to find. So its a perfect opportunity for anyone out bright and early to make a windfall.

Today was another one of those days: I found a $5 bill just laying in the grass. Whoa, put on the brakes, back up, and snatch that up right away. I even took a few extra seconds to look around the area and in the nearby bushes to see if there was any more floating around, but no such luck.

I'm pretty sure if I was a speedier runner, I might not see something like that as easily. So I have an advantage there. My secret hope is to find a $100 just laying there, waiting for an opportunist like me to come along.

Today was also the day to again extend the morning run up to 45 minutes. I am finding it easier and easier to do that, and enjoying it more because of that. I rarely have to stop and catch my breath any more, and usually keep in mind when the next traffic stop will allow a break if it becomes necessary.

I headed out to the zoo park and noticed there were a few mature trees that had come down from the last storm. Running back, I cut through the neighborhoods and saw there were branches down everywhere. I couldn't tell if it was from the Saturday night storm or all the wind we had yesterday. Either way, I found it odd that people would just let big branches lay across their front steps for any length of time, something small enough to move themselves, but too big to really get around easily. In that neighborhood though, there doesn't appear to be much pride in ownership, because I doubt there is much ownership of homes in that area. You can definitely compare the difference with all the junk in the yards, trash in the streets, and today branches everywhere. No one wants to take any responsibility for cleaning up their neighborhood. That's someone else's job.

And it was with luck when I took another detour to avoid some of the busier traffic areas where I came upon the $5. Lucky me today!