Close call...

I had this whole blog post planned out in my head for today... it had been brewing for a few days and I was all ready... but, that post must wait, because today... today I must tell you about my morning...

Let me set it all up for you...

My parents are leaving this morning to go on a 17 day Mediteranean cruise and I, being the lovely daughter that I am, volunteered to drive them to the airport this morning. I decided to just drive out there last night and spend the night with them, instead of driving out there this morning... that turned out not to be the best of ideas...

Last night... I ask my mom if I could borrow some contact solution so that I could take my contacts out, she tells me that she has some in her bathroom and I proceed to go into the bathroom and grab a huge bottle of what looks like contact solution and I fill up my lens case and plop my lenses in there. Nevermind the fact that I did happen to notice that the tip of the bottle was red... but being the genius that I am... I thought nothing of it.

I get up at 5:00 am and stumble to the bathroom to put my contacts in... I unscrew the cap to my lens case and position the contact on my finger and place it on my eye. Immediately I feel as though a red hot poker has been stabbed into my eye and I try to take the contact out. I scratch and claw at my eye... trying to get the contact out. Finally, after probably scratching the hell out of my cornea, I get the contact out and start flushing my eye out with water. I just knew that I had gone blind in my right eye. (Luckily, I am an over-reactor and that was not the case). Turns out... the stuff wasn't saline solution.... no, it was cleaner. Hence, the burning and irritation. Also hence the red tipped bottle.

With a red eye that didn't want to stay open or stop watering, I contemplated bagging my morning run. But... I took yesterday off, and we all know how much I hate to miss two days in a row. So I thought... well, maybe I'll just run on the treadmill. I put my glasses on and headed to the treadmill. I lasted about 3 minutes on the treadmill before I decided to test my eye and glasses outside... I didn't know then that I should have just stayed on the treadmill...

Okay, so it's always dark now in the mornings when I run.... but "city dark" is a lot different than "suburbia dark." Holy shit. Between my jacked up eyesight, my glasses, and the darkness I felt like I was navigating through a bad dream... just praying to God that I wouldn't step in a pothole and break my ankle. Finally, the sun started to make a slight appearance and just when I was at the furthest possible point from my parents house... my stomach started to... ummm... let's just say it started rumbling. I know that rumble, folks. That rumble means I better find myself a bathroom or pop-a-squat fast. I turn around and start heading back... checking out the environment as I'm running to see if there is a possibly perfect "pop-a-squat location." And... there's not. The feeling (as I'm sure most of you know...) comes in waves... and the longer you ignore the feeling... the quicker the waves start to come. First... I had like 1 minute between each wave... but as time went on... that dwindled down to like 20 seconds and 10 seconds.

I picked up the pace, realizing that I had to get back to my parents as quickly as possible. Slowing down only when the feeling comes and forces me to concentrate on it, instead of running. I contemplate walking... but I feel like that isn't going to help the situation at all... With about 1/2 mile left... I seriously start to feel like i might actually crap my pants. I try to come to grips with the idea that it might actually happen this time... I might not make it back in time. The feeling is coming every 10 seconds and it's almost to the uncontrollable stage...

I get into my parents neighborhood and have to climb up a little hill... As I'm climbing this hill... I repeat over and over in my head... you can make it, you can make it... It was at this very moment... with only a tenth of a mile before my parents driveway... that I could feel that I was starting to lose control... I picked up the pace and clenched harder than I've ever clenched before. I prayed that my dad hadn't gone outside to pick up the paper and forgotten that I was out running and locked the front door. I knew that even an extra second could be disastrous...

I got to the front door and put my hand on the knob and it clicked and opened... I ran straight to the bathroom and by some miracle actually made it. I also recorded a new PR for the mile. I may not have gotten my 6 miles in, but I didn't crap my shorts... and that's worth a lot more than another 7 tenths of a mile.