Hell, and the freezing and whatnot

So I'm normally the guy that laughs at people who get stuck in the grass after it's been especially wet.  Unfortunately, today I could only laugh at myself.  Ashley had to be at church early, so me and the kids came separately.  I was "on time" for church, which means cutting it kind of close, but still, we were there in time to get inside long before the music stopped.  But it was a big day at church, and the parking lot appeared to be already bulging when I got there.  And I was in the van, which is kind of large.  So when I saw a spot where I could back in on the grass and not be in a tight parking space nor in anyone's way, I decided to jump in it right quick.  Only it was downhill just a touch and it was REALLY soft due to recent rain.  I felt it the moment I backed in, but it was too late.  Just started spinning.

Ugh.  Normally I would have not worried too much about it and just gone to services and waited until most of the parking lot was empty afterward and dealt with it then.  But today we had baseball at 2pm in Pittsboro, so we needed to be gone right when church ended to have any time to grab food at a drive-thru and get there in time for Zach to warm up.  So instead of going to services, I went and found Ashley and had her pull me out with her Pilot after services started.  By some stroke of luck I did have a tow strap in the van, but didn't have anything to attach it with.  But I used some bike rack parts on one end and random piece of metal on the other and made it work.  But it still took a good 15 minutes and my shoes were pretty gross from the mud, so we went ahead and just went and sat down to eat lunch and then went to baseball.

That's a little bad luck, but also something I should have known better to do to begin with.  Just like this past Friday night, when I took Kevin and Zach out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant.  We ordered, ate, and then when the bill came I realized I had NO MONEY.  Somehow I had forgotten my wallet.  Fortunately they were quite understanding and I was able to call them with my credit card number when I got home.  Which was also kind of dumb, since I actually do KNOW my American Express number and could have just given them that on site.  It's been a pretty mediocre weekend.

But that brings us to the hell freezing thing.  For the longest time I've said I had no urge to do a long running race, but I've found I have almost no running motivation these days, even though I really need to do it to help my mountain biking as well as for the cross training benefits.  I used to run both for those reasons and because I thought at some point I'd learn to swim and work on being a triathlete.  But I've mostly given up on the triathlon idea, which has led to less running motivation.  So I figured a good way to get some motivation back might be to run a half marathon.

Yeah, a half marathon.  You know the joke...every time someone says they ran a half marathon I think to myself "now there's someone who knows how to do things half-way."  So soon that will be me, too.  Well, "soon" is a relative term...I don't think I'm going to do a race until late January or early February, but it's time to plan it, anyway.  And thanks to Shelley, I have a time to shoot for...1:57.  That's going to be tough!