QUE DIA

I realize that "Que dia" is more of an end-of-the-day thing and it is currently 9:51 AM, but the past 24-hours have definitely been "que dia" worthy.

First....I went to the gym after work yesterday and I think I broke every rule of gym etiquette. Let me start off by saying that I got tendonitis in my right knee in April. I was told not to run for 2 weeks. Well...after 2 weeks it wasn't better. Two weeks turned into 6 weeks. After x-rays and an MRI they basically just told me to go easy on it. I guess that's better than having surgery. Anyway, all that to say I haven't been running since April because for a time there I would rather have sawed off my leg at the knee than walked anywhere! I tried running again once in July and it killed. Yesterday I felt like my knee had been doing better, so I was going to give the running thing another try.

At the gym, all the treadmills are lined up in 4 rows, probably 8-10 to a row. I like the back row. Sometimes when you run, your shorts ride up and I don't like knowing people are on the treadmill behind me....it's bad enough they have mirrors everywhere. So, on this back row, there were 2 treadmills open. I don't know if there is some known rule about having to skip every other treadmill like guys skip every other urinal. There was one open between 2 guys and one open on the end by a girl. I picked the one by the girl. I didn't want it to seem like "I'm going to get on the treadmill next to you and outrun you" but I really didn't want to run between the 2 guys (YES I know I over think everything in life.)

My first post-tendonitis-diagnosis run was nothing to brag about (except I DID outrun the skinny girl next to me). I'm just glad I ran without my knee giving out and I'm still able to walk today. haha. It's kind of sore, but it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it did in April. I think I'll start easing back into the running deal.

Since I didn't run much, I decided to swim laps too. I didn't get the memo that everyone swims after work on Fridays. The right 2 lanes (that don't have a rope separating them) are for old people who walk back and forth pretending to exercise. Then there are 3 other lanes for swimmers. Two of these lanes had 2 guys in each of them and the last lane only had 1 man. I decided to join him. I was going to wait at the end of the lane and ask him if he minded first, so I sat on the edge of the pool, but when he got to me, he did a flip turn and never saw me! Knowing I was probably breaking a MAJOR gym etiquette rule, I joined his lane, but made sure to stay on the side of the lane he wasn't. I swam 1 lap, and he was back where I started just standing there.  I fully expected him to yell at me, maybe even cuss me out for rudely invading his lane. I said "Hey, do you mind if we share?" He said "No, that's fine, you just startled me, I saw you out of the corner of my eye!"

So...I had to share this lane with this man. I can't really tell if this pool is smaller than Samford's. It's probably the same size, but the ceiling is half as low so the whole room is smaller...making the pool look smaller. I'm pretty sure the lanes are thinner though. In my swimming classes at school, we'd have 3-4 people to a lane, and I didn't feel too bad when I accidentally kicked my 'lane-mates' because we were friends and everyone at Samford has to be nice (it's a requirement to even get accepted). The only style you can do without kicking a 'lane-mate' when you pass them is free-style. No breast-stroke, no back-stroke, and DEFINITELY no butterfly! It was miserable sharing a lane because I was more focused on NOT kicking him when I passed him than I was about swimming. Actually, I don't think about swimming when I swim. I like to just clear my head and swim back and forth...it's therapeutic. I don't think I swam more than 10 minutes....it was pretty bad. All the other swimmers were probably thinking "wuss" when I got out, but I don't enjoy swimming up against the wall, sorry.

One of my coworkers got promoted, so I went out to dinner with a group from work. It was a blast until one of the older guys tried to start setting me up with the young guys from work. Yeah...when one of them was right beside me. Can you say awkward? I just laughed it off.

I woke up this morning at 5 AM....It's Saturday. I just couldn't sleep! I stayed in bed till 6, but I volunteered at the United Cerebral Palsy Run, Walk, Roll this morning and Volunteers had to check in by 7. This is my big "que dia" moment! I was supposed to help with the fruit/granola bar table, but they already had 7 people at the table when they could've used 2. They pulled me to go stand along the trail and direct people where to go. There was a sign that showed the 5k runners went straight ahead and the 1k walkers/rollers turned right. The other woman I was with asked the police who were stopping traffic for the race where we were supposed to tell the 1k-ers to go. He said "oh, you see that dirt lot up there? They go up that hill to the trail"....ok.....This hill he was talking about was 1. Dirt and 2. really steep. I knew this was going to be a problem because the "rollers" the race are in electric wheelchairs. Do y'all see where this is going? No where good, that's where!

The race started, the 5k-ers were off. Then the 1k-ers came and they missed their turn...they started on the 5k trail, so they back tracked and headed my way. I was at the bottom of the hill and I was supposed to tell them the go up it. It was AWFUL! The people pushing the wheelchairs were looking at me like I was crazy and I just had to say, "Look, I don't know. I haven't seen a map of the course. The police said to go up the hill, but I wouldn't recommend it." They were having to pick up the wheelchairs just to get them over the curb! I don't know how they would make it up the hill! People were getting mad at me saying "This is the United Cerebral Palsy organization, don't they know they'll have wheelchairs. We can't go up that hill. Why don't they have a ramp? Why isn't it paved?" I can't tell you enough how awkward this was. I'm just a volunteer! They didn't tell me anything!

We finally realized where the sign said the 1k-ers were supposed to turn right, it was really more like a U-turn and there was a paved trail they could go down. We realized this in enough time to tell about half the 1k-ers, but the other half had already struggled up the hill. Poor guys. Some of the participants were like "well, yeah, this is how we did it last year. We went down the paved trail, not up the hill." The participants knew more about the course than the volunteers did....that's bad.

It was just a big miscommunication and the trail was NOT marked and the police didn't know what was going on. No one yelled at me, but I feel bad for the the UCP Development team that has to deal with all those calls they're going to get on Monday morning!

What a day! I think I'll take a nap and try to start it all over again. Redo button please!