100 Days of Benign Mundanity, Day 2. Maybe I should shorten that to 100 Days of BM, because that is also a pretty good goal to have.

From tomorrow (tonight, really), I’m blowing my weekly allowance (I am paying off plane tickets in August at the moment and trying to budget hardcore) to go to Toronto. In a more-dickish-than-usual move, I totally forgot to check with friends I knew were heading that way too to make sure it was AOK to get a lift with them.

Because months ago, I had told them I was thinking about taking the train early, when I could afford (kinda) to take days off willy-nilly.

Whoops.

It’s been cleared up now, but I wouldn’t blame them if they fumed for the five-hour journey x2.

I am bringing cookies as a thank you/peace offering. As you do.

Weekend plans almost entirely consist of biking, eating, and drinking. Jackie has made a map, anticipating five potential stops, including at least one for Tex Mex-ish comestibles. It is much more sophisticated than our bike-and-drink plans in Ottawa by far, so I’ll have to up my game if she comes here later in the year for similar.

I will probably report in from the road (or patio) tomorrow.

—
The other day, an acquaintance, who never talks to me about anything but running because he runs marathons a lot and REALLY REALLY like talking about doing marathons a lot even more, stopped by the cinema and asked me which race I was doing at Race Weekend. I told him none, because all the damned races had sold out in November. NOVEMBER.

Then I said it didn’t matter because I was going to Toronto this weekend anyway.

“Oh! What’s going on in Toronto?”

“Biking around, eating burritos?”

He had meant race-wise.

And seemed very disappointed.

I have been running this month actually, but I took this week off because I both gave blood and fell off my bike, bashing my knee*, on Monday. I actually am missing it a bit, but want to be careful because as soon as running starts hurting, I quit (for a while). And this spring is the first time I have truly enjoyed running since some cool day last summer, perhaps because Race Weekend pressure isn’t on me.

Seriously, NOVEMBER.

Yeah, sure, people auction off bibs later, but I was mildly furious enough to not even try that. Pique can be a mighty, and stupid thing.

Also, spring came so late that I’m sure I would have hated training during April blizzards more than anything and, consequently, run an even shittier race than usual.

I’m fairly sure that this is the first time in six years that I am not participating. I have been running (slowly, sporadically) for about seven years. I was so damned inactive for so long that that seems unfathomable to me. And, of course, it feels smugly good, even if my results have been fairly consistently ‘meh’ this whole time.

And I am fiercely excited to be participating in this in August.

I’m actually training harder than usual because a) I don’t want to embarrass or injury myself in front of foreigners, b) the city has actual hills, unlike this side of the Ottawa River, and c) I will be in Edinburgh, staying out late, and probably drinking a bit too much, in the week leading up to the race. All good motivation.

Of course, I have a sneaking suspicion that the scenery will be so beautiful that I will still have a terrible chip time because I’ll be stopping to take photos or just gawp in awe like the sophisticated, focused, serious athlete I am (not).

* I have a nice scab, of the kind I semi-permanently had all summer, every summer, as a child.