Two in a row

It has been a rough week to train. Work hours doubled and the work was tedious, exacting and very important. Tough conditions! I'm not the kind of person who rebounds from that by taking a run. I'm the kind of person who rebounds from that by ordering pizza and watching a marathon of House. So yesterday was my first run of the week and it took a shoehorn to get me out of the house.

So running today was an important tell. If I got out the door then maybe I still have what it takes to put in the miles need to be marathon ready. If I excused my way out of it today, well maybe I was really fooling myself this time around.

There were a couple obstacles. Jack had an 8:30 am hockey game and Avery had to be at gymnastics at 8:30 am too! So the parents split. I take Jack (the joy of coaching) and Jim drops Avery at the gym. The Blues win the game in the last 5 seconds of the game 2-1. We wrap up and go home. Now I have to manage the transition. That is what life is all about, managing the transitions. My friend Scott and I were discussing training earlier in the week and this was an epiphany I got from that conversation.

Go in the house, straight to the bedroom, take off rink clothes, put on gym clothes, grab my gym pass, Ipod and car keys and GET OUT THE DOOR! Do not pass go. Do not collect $200 just Go Go Go! Somehow I did it and got to the gym. You would think at this point my struggles would be over, but no. Treadmills are jammed. The only two left are archaic machines who nobody ever uses if they can avoid it. I don't need fancy so I just jump on and go. 20 minutes into the run I find out why nobody ever uses them. You get in 20 minutes and then you start your two minute cool down. There is no adjusting this. Oh did I mention that the other old machine next to me has an error message on the screen and that every person that gets on it to use it asks me about it. "Hey what's wrong with this thing?" "Is this thing broken?" Does the attendant know about this?" How the hell do I know. I answer nicely which is just not natural for me, "Not sure." "Yep, seems like it." and "No clue." Yes...that is very nice for me when people are asking me stupid questions.

But I digress, so I have to jump off the machine reset it and start again. Did I mention that I didn't look down at my distance? So now I'm running again trying to get in as much distance as I can before it decides it is time for me to cool down again. After 40 minutes and way to many conversations about broken exercise equipment I get off the treadmill. I can only hope I got in my 3 miles. Any normal adult would have 4 miles done but I'm not normal. I think we have established that.