Texting Your Way to Love

If you identified with my post on texting, you'll love this.

Herd

"Six minute folks, to the front. Six minute runners. Seven minute runners."

Should we move back? We might be too close. I don't run that fast, we'll get run over. We could just stand here on the side and wait for people to go by. There's the air horn, time to head off! Shoulder to shoulder, stacked on top of each other. Close to the starting line. Here's the timing pad, start running now! Wonder if my chip registered? Would just figure if it didn't, go through all the trouble to get one and then there's some software glitch. Focus now, gotta settle into a pace. Nice slow hill to start. I lost my friends... that's OK, this has to be my race. Should have brought my iPod, help set my stride. Listen to the crowd instead...

Humming, buzzing. Rhythmic footfalls, one-two, one-two, multiplied times 1,000. A cavalry of people. Heavy breathing, panting, echoes all around me. Idle chatter from a group of friends running together. Policeman on the corner, holding back a line of cars. Bet they're pissed, I'm toward the middle of the pack, they'll be there a while...

Mile marker one and I'm feeling good. Does that say nine minutes? Yup. That says nine minutes. Doing better than I thought. Feeling strong. Pick out a girl ahead, follow her. Dodging the boy in front of me. Blackburn hill ahead--this won't be so bad. Lean in, Sarah told me, lean into it and it won't be so bad. Halfway up, breathing harder now. Legs still moving. Made it up. Feeling strong. Very strong. Take it up a notch, huh? Pick out a new mark, the girl in the yellow shirt looks good...

Rounding the curve, almost to the Trail now. How far have we gone? Did I miss the mile 2 marker? Water stop, I don't need it. Let's hit the trail. Narrow space, running around people, dodging pets. Some unfortunate Trail walkers walking against the flow. A lot of us, a few of them. Guy in red shirt, he's got a good pace. Hm, cramp coming on. Breathe through it. In, count footsteps one two three four, out count footsteps one two three four. In...

Think my pace is good. Is that man running toward me already finished? And circling back the other way again? Damn, that's just unnatural. Pass over Lemmon, getting close to the end I think. Where will we stop? Passing on the left. Hit the soft trail, it's easier on your feet. I feel light as air anyway. Gliding along. Final time sign, three mile marker. Twenty five? No way. Tenth of a mile to go, turn it ON. Pump legs. I still have juice left, make 'em work for it. Push push push push...

Beeping, beeping, beeping, chips beeping as we all cross the finish line. My face must be red, keep walking, keep walking, get some water, deep breaths...

Legs tightening up a bit, lactic acid settling in. Should stretch. Can't. Too wound up. Ready to do the next one. Well, maybe not now. Endorphins pumping into my blood, euphoria taking over...

Smile, look around the herd. It's good to be alive.

Eeek Factor

Some might call me squeamish. I don't really like the sight of blood, needles, medical procedures or general body goop. When they take my blood, I can't watch them do it, and once the needle is in, they must cover it or I WILL pass out just from looking it. I'm not a big fan of other kinds of grossout factors, either--I HATED the movie Jackass, I don't like bugs, I'm not a fan of snakes or rodents or other vermin. (While I am a fervent animal lover and have a healthy appreciation for "helping others," I suspect this anti-biology orientation is the primary reason I did not pursue a career in either science or medicine.)

While I may be easily grossed out, I am not, however, a screamer. I'm not the girl who screams at a pitch only heard by dogs and stands on a chair while creepy crawlies scamper around on the floor. Repulsed face-maker, yes. Surprised yeller, yes. Eye-shielder, of course. But screamer?? No. Until...

An incident last night made me an official one-leg hopping, girly-voiced screaming, hand-wringing freak.

I headed down to the gym last night after work for the first of a series of spinning classes. I had remembered to pack my bag in the morning with the essentials: gym shorts, sports bra, t-shirt, socks, sneakers. I hadn't used my bag for a few days, but didn't notice anything amiss as I loaded it up.

So imagine my surprise when I opened my bag and found a new friend inside.

Yes, that's right, the extra inhabitant of my gym bag was none other than a Texas-sized roach. For those of you who have never seen a Texas-sized roach, pinch your index finger and thumb together: the outline your hand makes is how big one of these babies is.

And it was inside my bag. In. Side. Crawling all over my stuff.

What else could I do? I screamed and threw the bag down. A colleague came to my aid.

"What's wrong?"

"There's a bug. In my bag. A big bug. BIG."

"What kind of bug?"

"BIG."

"Let me see it." She rustles around in my bag, as my little crawly friend tries in vain to find a new dark spot upon being exposed to the light. "Oh... that's a roach!"

More screaming.

"I'll get him." She proceeds to pick up my bag and jostle it around in the hopes he'll just fall out. Instead, he seeks shelter in my shoe. She dumps it on the floor, but he still won't come out. Finally she upends the shoe and out he tumbles, and as he races across the floor... SPLAT. (It's good to know not everyone is squeamish, but I'm going to think twice about walking barefoot in the locker room for a while.)

I don't know what's more disturbing in this situation: Roach crawls in my bag at home and gets shuttled to work, or roach crawls in my bag in my cubicle and gets shuttled down to the gym. Neither seems to be an attractive option. I'm planning a massive cleaning of both spaces and quite afraid for what I might find...