Learning to Adapt on the Run

As a runner, I've learned to adapt to changing terrain, weather, mood, and more. I strive to adapt as well as I can, but sometimes you get a curve ball that's too big to handle so you just shut down and call it a day.

As I've grown older, I've learned that boring is pretty damn nice. Sometimes I dread living a boring life, but those exciting days tend to make me enjoy them much more. So now when I have a boring day, I'm thankful it wasn't full of too much excitement.

Today was a day I had to apply both of these learnings. It was a bit too exciting in some areas, and just exciting enough in others. Since it was a Federal holiday, our babysitter was off which meant I was the babysitter. Yvonne was off too, but because she had some doctor's appointments. So William and I dropped Elizabeth off at school and we headed to town for a day of shopping. I scored a great breakfast at Panera before we headed to Target for some shopping. Nothing too exciting there, so we washed Yvonne's truck then headed to BJ's to meet Yvonne for some shopping. So far, nothing terribly exciting.

Then we headed to Gander Mountain for more shopping. William enjoyed looking at the tents, which was a hoot. Then we went to Joseph-Beth Booksellers where I scored a running and a tri magazine. Can't wait to crack into them. William was being a good sport, so I got a book for him (more on that later). We went down to the local bike shop and I shopped around and tried out a bike. Fit better than expected and was a hell of a lot lighter than expected. It may be love at first sight, but I think that's the bike I want. I'll have to do some more research. I also picked up new bike shorts (woohoo!) and some drink-mix to test out as well.

We met my dad for lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise and then we went to my favorite store, VA Runner where I finally made a decision and bought a pair of Kinvaras. Yes, I'm the proud owner of some Saucony Kinvaras (in ViZi-PRO of course) as well as a pair of Exodus 2s as well. They felt better than the Asics I tried on and feel better than the TR4s I already have.

I had my excitement in the bag with some new shoes so we headed to Wegman's to get some groceries. Since we were just a tiny bit pushed for time, I made sure we were as efficient as possible picking up all of our food. As we neared the end of the list, we waited for our steaks to get sliced and William decided to have his excitement. By barfing all over the cart, himself, and the floor. With a little going on the display and his father, but thankfully none contaminated the food. Ick.

As I cleaned my son, myself, and our cart, the employees at Wegman's were wonderful, nay, beyond wonderful. I had to sacrifice a reusable grocery bag to catch some of the barf as well as use it as a trash bag for the paper towels we were using. So not only did they help clean, they also gave us some plastic bags to use should William decide for more excitement. And, they gave us a new shopping bag to replace the sacrifice. And during the entire time, they kept asking if William was okay as well as asked if we needed anything. Not to mention the meat department guy finished cutting and wrapping the steaks. If you ever want to know what great customer service is like, I suggest you check out Wegman's and Zappos. Both are leaders in awesome service.

So while this all happened, I told Yvonne I couldn't make it to school to pick up Elizabeth, so Yvonne took care of that. And as William and I neared home, she called to tell me to take a detour because there was an accident right in front of our house. Oh boy. More excitement. Turns out some guy was run off the road by a woman in a white Jeep with a black top. She stopped, saw what happened, then took off. The guy that wrecked his truck was fine but his truck wasn't. Tires aren't supposed to point in opposite directions. So I put my new Saucony Epic Run jacket (in ViZi-PRO of course) to good use as I directed traffic around the scene.

So. Police. New shoes. Barf on my old shoes. And I still didn't get marshmallows at the grocery store. Now do you see why boring is good? And why adapting to the stuff life throws at you is important. And with that, I bid you good night.