Exclamation Point.

They say that every once in a while a day comes along that unpredictably ends up punctuating the story of your life. On Friday, Jenn and I had that kind of moment in our training journey. It was Friday at 4:48pm and it had started to rain pretty heavily and it was getting cold outside. I told Jenn I don’t want to run – I want to drink and sleep, but not necessarily in that order. Jenn also wants to drink. But this was the first day the two of us were supposed to run together – we even brought a change of clothes to the office. In our heads, the solution was easy – we would run to the bar and back. So we mapped out the route to Corby’s – exactly one mile from our work. If we ran there, had a couple beers, and ran back, we would far exceed our goal, which was to complete another 1.5 mile run. It’s a wonder the two of us haven’t solved world hunger yet. We went to the bathroom, double-bagged the girls (for the less well-endowed readership, this consists of securing your already lycra and wire-bound breasts with an extra layer of synthetic fabric – God bless the Sports Bra), and put on some sweat pants. After we got changed, we were trying to decide whether to put our debit cards in our socks or bras. Real runners don’t carry a purse. Real runners, where do you store your beer money, then? While all of this was taking place, we realized it was stupid to think we could fit in a couple of beers into our run, and this is where that punctuation moment happened. I’m not even sure how or why we made this decision, but we went running. We walked for three minutes, ran for three, and did that until we had gone one mile along the river and then doubled back. We ran 2 miles! In the cold rain. I was so proud of us. I was incredibly nervous about running with Jenn. Jenn is not a fat chick, to say the least. In fact, Jenn has the kind of measurements that make it into the lyrics of rap songs. We probably share a bra cup size (in fact, sports bras were a bigger priority for us than running shoes), but her waist is about the circumference of my thigh. If she wasn’t the sweetest person on the planet with a really infectious giggle, I might hate her. Well, that, and I’m an evolved human being. But Jenn was incredibly supportive and encouraging and pretended not to notice that I was about to keel over. When we went for our celebratory beers (I mean, we did run/walk TWO miles), Jenn didn’t even order fried pickles. She loves fried pickles. And we both got grilled chicken with a dry rub instead of sauce. Jenn said, “I know you’re not supposed to drink at all when you’re in training, but I’m not going out like that.” And, for the umpteenth time that day, I knew for sure I picked the right training partner.