Run early, run often

9:37 AM: I get back from a very chilly walk with the dogs to see an e-mail from Betsy, my sometime gym partner: "I'm hoping to head over to the gym around 10:00. Give me a call or e-mail if you're interested." I purse my lips, wondering if I should essentially drop everything and go the gym right away. I have two deadlines to meet today and I haven't started either project that's due. Work is going to take me in its giant fist and squeeze me until my eyeballs bulge. I also need to make dinner before those chicken breasts in the fridge go bad, and I look like hell and could really use a good long shower before I allow anyone to lay eyes upon me.

Still, at least this way I know I'll get my run in. I call Betsy and tell her we're on.

10:30 AM: The gym is as crowded as I've ever seen it. I can't even sit down in the locker room for more than 15 seconds before someone walks up and says, "Excuse me, but I need to get in that locker behind you." This happens three times. I do manage to snag a treadmill next to Betsy and start running. I am inappropriately gleeful that I got one of the treadmills with a working heart rate readout. After my five-minute warmup, I set the speed to an 11-minute pace and give myself a slight incline. I note with satisfaction that just a few weeks ago when I was running with Betsy and Steve, aka The Runner Who Will Always Be Much Faster Than Me (Probably Also Following His Death), I was running a slower pace, but it took much more effort on my part. Improvement is a beautiful thing.

11:00 AM: An athletic-looking college-age woman sidles up to me, hands on hips, and shoots me a disapproving look. "Did you sign up for that?" she says, nodding her head at the gerbil wheel. She clearly thinks I am squatting here and stole her precious treadmill. I say I did, and she asks when I'm going to be done like she is just sooooo put out. I tell her twelve minutes and kick the speed up another notch. Sheesh. I can't wait for March when all the New Year's resolution people will be gone and the weather will make it easier to run outside.

11:15 AM: Done with the run. I covered three miles in 34:42 for an 11:34 pace, but that included the five-minute warmup. I step off the treadmill only to see that Miss Soooo Put Out is jogging along on a different one.

12:00 PM: After twenty minutes of pretzel exercises (aka stretching), I change, wait a bit for Betsy to finish up, and get dropped off back at home. Yes, it took two hours to go to the gym! My first work deadline is at 5 PM, aaack!

1:00 PM: After a good lunch and a bit of reading, I finally sit down at the computer to start Project #1, which is due in 4 hours.

4:40 PM: Project #1 is finished! I send it off, feeling very accomplished and brilliant, and start putting on the extra clothing needed to walk the dogs in sub-20-degree weather.

5:40 PM: I decide I will cook before I do Project #2, which is not due until 10 PM.

7:15 PM: My home-cooked dinner is ready! Yum.

8:00 PM: I sit down to tackle Project #2. It's much smaller than #1, so I figure it can't take too long.

8:30 PM: I tell myself to stop reading blogs and get to work already.

9:15 PM: Done! I send off Project #2.

9:30 PM: I start writing this blog entry.

The moral of the story is that you should always run as early in the day as possible, no matter how busy your schedule is. Even though I had a ton of work to do today, everything still got done on time. It didn't matter that I essentially lost the whole morning. I am sure that if I had waited, with the excuse that "I have so much to do today--I'll go after I get everything else out of the way," I wouldn't have had enough oompfh left to go to the gym--or I would have gone in the evening and had to elbow my way through a crowd just to get on the indoor track. (If the place was wall-to-wall at 10:30 in the morning, can you imagine what it must be like at 6:30 at night??)

So, run early, run often! You won't regret it.