When Duty Calls

One of the benefits of morning workouts is that you get endorphins nice and early in the morning, leaving you full of energy as you stroll into work. Nice, right. But the REAL benefit of morning workouts is the sudden jolt to your "metabolism". Sometimes that jolt comes at unexpected times. Like say...in the middle of your run. Yea, not good. This definitely wasn't the first time its happened either. I'm just saying that some situations leave easier options than others.

Option number one is when you just tough it out. If its a nice short run, you can just tough it out and all will be good. However, there are many risks. What happens if you don't quite make it. Dangerous. If you are confident or a risk taker, then that's not a bad option.

Option number two is to just find a place along the way to go. For some, this may be a challenge. Various problems exist: stage fright, fear of unknown places, lack of options, no tp, sub-standard conditions., etc. You get the idea. The clear benefit is that you take care of business is a facility and don't have to worry about anything after its all done.

Of course, there is a third option. But I don't recommend this option. You guessed it. Option three is to find a quiet spot in the woods. With it being winter and all, I think there may be a lack of items to use as "clean up duty", seeing as how all leaves are crunchy. Now that would hurt. Last. Resort. Only.

So what option did I take this morning? Fortunately, I was only about 2 miles into my run, so I hadn't gone too far from home. I knew what stores were around me, what would be open, and where may be the best place to go. I went for option #2. My choices within reasonable distance on my run course were Eckerd and Starbucks. Eckerd was closer, but Starbucks likely had better conditions. Tough decision indeed. Nature got the best of me and I was forced into Eckerd. I knew where to go, as I've crossed paths with the facilities there before. What was nice was that it is big, so I can inconspicuously walk through the isles and find my way into the restrooms. What was not nice was that there was no tp. However, someone was nice enough to leave behind a fair amount of napkins. A bit rough, but better than winter leaves. I took care of business, meandered around for a minute to look like I was shopping and was on my way to continue my run.

The rest of my run was great. 6.2 miles covered in 47:45 for a solid tempo run.