Running through the projects

I’m not always the smartest person. That’s just a fact. I’m fairly intelligent, but I’ve been known to make a faux pas here and there.

It was the summer, and I was still living in the Bronx. One of the things I often did was run for miles and miles. I loved expanding my “running territory.” As my endurance improved, I ran further and further away from my home base.

One day I was running down third ave in the Bronx, I was sweating and super hot. So I did what any sane man would do, and I took off my shirt. I had my headphones on, some rather short shorts on, and no shirt.

At the time, I was fairly lean, and quite a specimen to behold. As I was running, I could see the admiration on the faces of women, and the envy on the faces of men. Then after sometime running deeper into third ave things started to feel more crowded. The familiar brick red, tall buildings, trees, and narrow passageways. My dumb ass somehow ran smack into the projects, shirtless, in small shorts, and looking as pasty as a hipster during Sunday brunch.

As I continued running, I turned off my music as I realized that I was in unknown territory. I heard people saying, “Look at this Rocky wanna be fool! Boy gonna get himself hurt running around here like that. These pigs are crazy.”

Yup, I was definitely not in Kansas, and I was not welcome in this part of town. So I sped things up and tried to make my way out of there as soon as possible. Returning the same path was out of the question, I wasn’t going to try my luck twice, so I had to run deeper and deeper until I found a way to turn back that went through a path where I hadn’t already been seen.

“Ey yo, look at this fool.” I continued running and prayed, “Dear legs, don’t fail me now.” It is my belief that on this day I took my cardio to another level. One, because I was running while shitting bricks, and two because I started to run faster and faster as I became noticed and started getting special attention.

Granted, I probably brought this on myself. What the hell was I thinking running into a project complex? But I’m one of you, so it’s all good, right? Well, no, not really. I may be Latino, but all they saw was my pasty ass running shirtless through their projects. Needless to say, once I made it out of the complex, I never ran through that route again!

*Note: The above picture is not an image of the Bronx, but it illustrates perfectly where I ran into.*