Begin whiny part of story here....
I had to travel into DC for work (something I will now be doing a bit more often for work), so I was up about 45 minutes extra early to factor in the extra commute time. With a few meetings for the morning, the plan was to leave around noon, take the metro and bus connector to get home in time for a late lunch and spend the rest of the day working from home. The puzzle pieces started to mismatch shortly after an hour or so in the office. I didn't end up getting out until about 1 pm, which meant I wouldn't be getting home as early as planned (ie an even later lunch). Well another wrench was thrown into that plan when I realized that I may have locked a door that I don't have a key for on my keychain, which meant that even if I get home, I would have no way of getting to the house. Lovely. Seeing as it was now about 2:30, I was hungry, and had no idea what to do, I called Rebecca and we developed a plan where I'd take the bus toward home as usual, but just hang out at the local coffee shop until she could come get me on her way home from work a couple hours later. Fine, I'll grab some food around there, I thought. Well, I get off the metro and start looking for the bus I was planning to take, only to realize that the area is under massive construction and I had to go to the other side of the station. This involved walking back through the metro station, over the highway via a bridge and to the other bus terminals. Well guess what? That line I would normally take isn't coming back till 4 pm. Oh joy. So I start looking at other options and realize there is a different bus that could drop me off in the vicinity of where I was headed. Only, its terminal is back on the other side from where I came, so back I go over the highway, through the metro station, and back to the other bus terminal. Finally, I am on the bus, but instead of taking the direct route, it stops at 30,000 locations before making it to mine. It is now 3:30, I've been doing all this walking around with my laptop bag in tow, and I am raging hungry. Thankfully, the weather is perfect, so I am neither cold nor hot. So I get to the mall where the bus drops me off and I have to walk through the mall to get to the other side toward where I'm headed and guess what? That stupid escalator is broken, so I have to walk around the mall till I find the nearest stairs and walk up the stairs and exit the mall. At this point, it is only a 3/4 mile walk to the coffee shop and I'll be there by 3:45. Yep - still hungry.
End whiny part of story here...
And just as I am nearing the coffee shop, a lightbulb goes off in my head. My car was parked outside the house, which has a remote for the garage door opener, and I had my car keys with me. Score! Of course, I had to walk another mile to get home from where I was and when I finally managed to get home, it was now about 4:15. After a quick check of email, I run over to the kitchen to try and eat something (anything!). And before I knew it, I had downed a big bowl of mac and cheese we had made the previous night. Finally I am no longer starving. And guess what? That door I was concerned about? Unlocked. Oh well, not much I could do about that anymore. I am home at least.
But then it hits me, if I am going to get my run in today, it has to happen NOW due to other obligations in the evening. So with a big bowl of mac and cheese in my stomach, I set out to run my planned interval workout of mile repeats. I won't say it was the best workout ever, but what I will say is that I hit my splits, my stomach only slightly bothered me, and I made it work. By the end of the day, I'm sure I covered 10 total miles. Think I can count all that in my logbook?
The lesson here (yes, there is a lesson to be learned from this!) is that it's not always the ideal situations that we are presented with that makes us grow. More often, it is the tough times when you don't have the ideal situation, but you MAKE time to make it work. I could have just as easily said that I didn't have time, or that I had a long day, or that I was too full. I didn't. I've got no excuses. I got my run in and made it count for something and when it was all said and done, I felt good about my day, because it ended how I envisioned it. Sometimes it doesn't matter the road you take, as long as you get there. Days like these are when you have to keep that mindset if you want to survive it. And boy am I glad I did!
Ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go your way? Do you use running or something else to get you through it?
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