It dawned on me last night. I was suppose to go to a friend's house for a men's night out, watch a “shoot em up” movie, drink beer, you know “manly stuff”. I had planned to go to a clinic on stretching that we were giving for the Patrick Henry Half Marathon Training Team (http://ashlandhmt.teamlobby.com) and then head to my friend's house. I should have known I had a problem when earlier in the day, I had thrown in my “addiction” gear into the car, just in case I needed it. I thought, as I drove to clinic, maybe nobody will show and I can just go through with my plans for the guy's night out. No such luck, there were already several others at the YMCA when I arrived. As soon as I got there, Dave, one of the other coaches said, “You gonna run after?”. Without even thinking, I said “yeah, I brought my stuff”. All through the clinic, I kept telling myself, “you don't need to do this, you ran this morning, there's no need to run again”. But as Matt, the PT from Ashland Physical Therapy, was giving his speech on the importance of stretching, I found myself getting pumped-up for what I knew awaited at the end of the clinic.

When the clinic ended, I sprinted to the restroom to change into my “stuff”. I couldn't resist. I met the others outside and we went for a nice, comfortable (as comfortable as you can be in 99% humidity) 3 mile run. After the run, we hung around a bit, and talked about running stuff. I got in my car (it was almost 8:30 p.m.) and phoned my friend. “I can't make it” I said, “something came up”, not wanted to mention my addiction. “Maybe we can do this next week”. As I drove home, I thought, I gotta get home and take a shower and get to bed, Starbucks group run tomorrow at 6:00 a.m., don't want to miss that!

If your reading this, and have read my past blog posts, I hope you know, although the story is kinda true, I have a little twisted sense of humor. I'm not really addicted to running. I can stop anytime I want ;>)

See you on the streets,
Tom