Day 36: It Gets Ugly

Date: April 8th 2011, 4:45 pm
Distance: 6.2 miles
Weather: Falling Snow

First, the weather got ugly. It's like 33 degrees outside, with heavy snowfall that is just making everything wet. I'm cold because I went out under-dressed (my long sleeve shirt is in the laundry). I figured that this run would be short enough that all I have to do is go fast. Plus, I'm not going that far from home, right?

It wasn't 5 minutes before I started experiencing a lot of discomfort. My socks got wet and a portion of loose wet sock in the toe of my shoe got lodged between my second and third toes on my left foot. Then my bowels seized up, making it hard to run. I took a wrong turn because I ran out the door without double checking my route. This extended my run by over a mile. Add this to feeling cold and my souring attitude and you get one ugly run.

I went slow. Time dragged on. I did have one redeeming experience though. As I was nearly home and running past the MTC, three missionaries called out to me:

"Excuse me, are you a member of The Church?"

"Uh, yeah. Do you have something you wanted to share with me?" (I've been in the MTC before, so I knew the drill)

"Um... Uh, we just wanted to come and contact you. Um, so... yeah. We gotta get 20 contacts by the end of the day, and we only have 3 so far."

Another Elder spoke up.

"Oh, and we're supposed to show you this picture of Jesus and John the Baptist but we don't have it with us. Do you know what picture I'm talking about?"

"I think so."

"Yeah, that one."

Good times. I think I caught them off guard or something... plus I'll bet they were really fresh. Either way, it's better for them to have this awkward conversation with me now than with a big Swedish man in a couple of months. It made me smile.