Well, that was longer than I had planned

Yesterday I went for a run. I had taken a bit of a break due to my shoulder/neck problem, and my leg was bothering me a bit after my last race. But, after reading Mr. Unfocused's tweets about the Urbanathlon I was going to do this year, I decided I better get moving again. I was feeling pretty good yesterday, so I decided I'd go out and run 5 miles. I figured I'd take it kind of slow to make sure nothing was hurting, and it would give me a good idea how I'd feel for the race I'm running in two weeks. On a side note, I find it funny that I refer to these as races. That's what they are, but I have no chance of winning, so I should just call it an organized run. Don't you think? Oh, but this race (sorry, organized run) is pretty cool. It's called the Hot Chocolate 15k/5k. Yes, lots of chocolate is involved. How do you pass it up?

So, yes, I went for a run after work. I set out at around 4pm and started out a little fast so I could warm up. It was a bit chilly yesterday. I was feeling good. My leg started to bother me a little around 3.6 miles, but it was a manageable pain. I would stop on occasion to stretch and it would feel better, so I was happy. As I was nearing the house I checked out my Garmin watch and saw I was at 4.88 miles. Nearly perfect for just guessing on a route. I wanted to make sure I did the full five, just so I could make sure I beat my virtual partner, so I had to run passed the house. That's when I noticed something i hadn't expected. One of the cars was gone. I knew Jenn said she needed to get a few things at Target, but she was going to wait until I got home.

When I stopped a few hundred feet from the house I checked my phone. Jenn tried calling three times. Not a good sign. I called her back and she told me she was at the vet. She wasn't positive, but she thought Cruise might have swallowed a magnet from a dart set the kids had. She saw him chewing something, it sounded like metal, and the kids couldn't find all the darts. She took him to the vet to see what they had to say. Now I was stuck outside the house without a key and she was a couple miles away. I stood out front stretching out for a bit and noticed there were no cars at any of the neighbor's houses that I knew. Great.

As I tried to look casual in the front of the house so as not to raise any suspicions, Jenn called me back to say the vet was going to do an x-ray to see if the magnet was in Cruise's tummy. I think they should have tried to stick metal on him first, just to keep the costs down, but I'm not a veterinarian. Since it was going to be a while I told Jenn I'd head that way and which roads I'd take. I was starting to get cold so I needed to start moving.

This time I plugged my headphones into my phone so if could hear if she called, and I set out for the vet. I was walking at first, but with the breeze and drizzle, I soon realized I needed to jog to stay warm. Wouldn't you know it? I was one block away from the place when Jenn called and said they couldn't see anything. So she picked me up, we headed home, and within 2 minutes the kids found all the darts. Sigh. Our son decided he was going to write down some rules of the house after this experience. Yes, keeping the darts upstairs was first on the list.

What's the moral of this story? Always take a key when you leave the house for a run. Or, just don't run. (I think that is going to be Nike's next tag line.)

The good news was that I ran 7 miles instead of 5. The last two were pretty slow, but who cares.