Triskaidekaphobia

We ran up a hill this morning.  When I say “hill”, I don’t mean a charming, grassy knoll a la Laura Ingalls on the banks of Plum Creek.  I mean we ran up a steep, ugly incline along the campus of a junior college with construction on one side and temporary soundproof barriers on the other.

I hate hill-work.  I try to make it more tolerable by breaking up the incline in pieces, and I have noticed invariably the markers I’ve found always add up to thirteen.  This particular hill today has thirteen telephone poles to the top.  Another hill we run has thirteen trees until the apex.

I’d like to provide you a third example to cement the rule of threes, but those are the only two inclines we run with any regularity.  I guess it's more of a coincidence instead of cosmic psychobabble that the number thirteen is out to get me.  In fact, I love the number, especially when I reach that thirteenth tree and know it's all downhill from here.

At least I’m not hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic.  Running uphill pass 666 trees would be fucking exhausting.