It’s National Running Day!

I was all set to pound out five miles this morning with my new weekday running buddy, a former co-worker who runs at my EXACT SAME PACE and lives only TWO BLOCKS AWAY FROM ME and OTHER CAPITALIZED WORDS.

But he texted me at 6:00 to say he had to go into work early. I got up anyway, laced up my shoes, found a shirt that wouldn’t stick to my gooey new tattoo, snarked down a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich and a giant glass of water, and headed out the door to run on my own.

And it was COLD outside. Cold enough to make me curse the June weather gods. Cold enough to make the buttons pop on the man-turkeys. Cold enough to warrant ANOTHER capitalization in this blog post. It was that cold. To make matters more miserable (alliteration runs rampant!), the mild headache I thought I’d shake off during my run just got worse as I tried to stretch. But I fired up my running watch and took off down the street anyway.

And by the time I’d galumphed my way to the end of the block (which is only one building away from our condo) I’d made the executive decision to abort my training mission and head back home to my still-warm bed. Which I did. With no regrets. Aside from the shirt covered needlessly with tattoo goo. And the still-lingering headache. And my long-ago investment in Tyco stock.

Of course, I didn’t know it was National Running Day until my weekend running buddy Paul directed me to his post about it on his spiffy new blog … well after I’d completed my little adventure in not running. And tonight I have plans to buy a new bathroom sink at The Home Depot so I can have our guest bathroom all gay-fabulous in time for a brunch we’re hosting over pride weekend. Which means I won’t run a step on National Running Day, unless I get to count my early-morning loping down the sidewalk in front of the building next door to ours. Or the Amex tab I’m going to run up at The Home Depot tonight. (Get it? Run up! It’s funny because it’s … oh, never mind.)

But at least our guest bathroom will finally stop looking so boring-white-walls/boring-white-tile ghetto. And the paint chips that have been taped to the doorframe for at least two years can finally be replaced with actual paint. And the gays will finally stop judging us at our pride brunches. And I’ll have a colorful, directional logo supporting me as I run (Get it? Run!) my errands tonight.