Standards of Measurement

This afternoon Eli and I were playing doctor. (I received a number of "shocks" for my bandaged foot. He simply cannot retain the term "shot.") But the most insightful part was when Eli took my temperature and announced, "Your temperature is eight miles per week."

It's possible Keith and I are officially runners.

What Happened Here?

Sunday morning I am walking through the 'Shoppes of Paradise Key' in Destin, Florida with my Auburn running friends. We are meandering in and out of stores: Coach Factory, Williams-Sonoma, Kenneth Cole NY, and my personal favorite, the Godiva Chocolatier. As our group strolls past the Abercrombie & Fitch storefront I glance at the reflection in the tall display windows and notice an elderly woman is walking amidst our group. She's wearing a velvet lounge suit, turquoise turtle neck, black Chaco sandals, white cotton socks, a tight little bun and has a slight limp. I take a couple more steps before it dawns on me--THAT WAS MY REFLECTION IN THE WINDOW. What happened here?

• Abercrombie & Fitch minus 4h It's 7am and my friends and I are huddled together trying to conserve heat at the starting line of the Seaside Florida Half-Marathon. I flew all the way from wintry northern Utah to participate in this beach-side event, happily expecting to return home with a little tan and three months worth of vitamin D. Instead I was blasted with temperatures in the 30s accompanied by winds up to 35 miles per hour. Before the race I was scrounging around the rental house for gloves, ear muffs, and something, anything, to shield my face from the bitter cold. (Where's Global Warming when you need it?) Despite the biting cold and hurricane warnings, my friends and I decided to run the race. And so, the first two hours of my morning were spent freezing my buns off while running a distance I had not adequately trained for. (My trip to Florida was really about the vitamin D.)

• Abercrombie & Fitch minus 2h It's 9am and I just finished the half-marathon. I am so cold and tired that I decide to abandon my running team for a much needed warm shower. I shuffle the half mile back to our rental house and clumsily strip off my many layers of running clothes. My fingers are still frozen stiff so this is not easy. My legs are exhausted, my lips are blue, and I can't stop my teeth from chattering. I turn on the shower and as soon as I see steam rising from behind the glass, I hop in. The rest is something of a blur because I'm not good with blood but somehow the glass door slips out of the track and the door falls into the tub. With frozen and slippery-wet hands I somehow manage to catch the shower door, but only in time to watch the other sliding door follow suit and crash sideways into the tub. The top corner slices an inch deep into the drywall and the bottom corner slams down onto the top of my foot. I promptly rid my hands of door number one and gently dislodge the other door from the wall and my foot. I look over at the huge gouge in the wall and then down at the gaping slice in the top of my foot and realize I'm in serious trouble. We are not going to get our security deposit back! Then, as the blood begins to leak out of my foot, I remember that I am not good with blood. I begin to feel lightheaded and I can tell I'm going to pass out; pass out in a tub already full of glass doors and blood. I woozily scramble over the side of the tub and try to get my wits about me. ...I won't go into any more detail because all it does is humiliate me more, but in a nutshell, I was exhausted, cold, wet, bleeding profusely and very much not dressed.

• Abercrombie & Fitch minus 1h Luckily for me, two of my running friends are nurses and when they entered the rental house they answered my pitiful cry; "I've fallen and I can't get up." (Sticking with the old lady motif here.) I was adequately bandaged and I feebly hobbled into my room so I could get some warm clothes on. Because I was in Florida! my suitcase was full of brightly colored shorts, capris, T-shirts and sandals. I had been warned that the beach cooled down considerably at night so at last minute I had thrown in a turtle neck and lounge suit. I knew the outfit didn't suit me but I figured I'd only be wearing it at night, when it was dark. I was still bone-cold from the race so I put on the turtle neck and lounge suit along with some thick white cotton socks. Because I still felt quite weak I did not feel inclined to balance on one foot in front of a mirror in order to blow out and curl my hair. So, I twisted it up into an easy bun.

• Abercrombie & Fitch minus 30 mins Despite my bloody, swollen, throbbing foot, I did not want to miss out on a social outing with my friends (I am who I am) so a few minutes later when everyone decided it would be fun to go peruse the shops in Destin, I grabbed my Chacos, loosened the straps as far as I could and limped out to the car. It never occurred to me to glance in a mirror and evaluate my overall appearance. In hind sight...
  

• Abercrombie and Fitch Once I realized that the old lady in the reflection was me, I started to laugh. I casually joked to my running companions that I looked like an old lady. No one contradicted me. They simply smiled and said, "You've had a rough morning." Needless to say, that took the chuckle right out of me.

I brought home my Chacos. The remainder of that outfit was left in a dumpster behind our Seaside rental property. It really was a rough morning.