The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Today started out on a fairly craptastic note.  Keira the WonderDog (as in, "Sometimes we wonder about you, Dog") started my day 50 minutes before the alarm rang with a tag-shaking, ear-flapping, toy-squeaking request to be taken out to poo.  This from the dog who typically has to be prodded awake at 10 am and dragged outside for a potty break.  And, of course--this being Minnesota in February, me being someone who doesn't trust my dog off leash, and Keira being a polite sort who believes that the "poo zone" doesn't start until the edge of the woods 200 yards from the house--the whole process required coat and boots and mittens and hat and enough time that I never did get back to sleep.

My day didn't improve much after that, and by evening I was very ready for my stress-relieving, endorphin-inspiring skate.  I had it all planned out: a nice set of 3K-pace intervals...not fast enough to tax my coming-down-with-a-cold body, but demanding enough to make me feel like I'd done something.  And my friend Mel was planning to skate a couple laps in my skates, to see whether my recent failure to figure out the "carve" should be blamed on me or on my skates (I think we all know how that one is going to end up, don't we?).

So I drove the 30 miles to the oval, happily indulging in my pre-skate ritual of iPod playlist and FRS energy shot and a couple of Gu Chomps just to be sure I didn't run out of energy mid-interval.  I pulled into the parking lot, found a spot amid the hockey-game-attending crowd, got out, opened the back door, reached into the backseat...

...and realized that I had left my skates at home.

Now, practice is 90 minutes long, and I had arrived uncharacteristically late--right at the start of the ice time instead of my customary 30 minutes early--so I had no time to go back for the skates.  But there I was, all wound up and cranky and energy-shotted and Gu'd...getting back into the car and driving home was not an option.

So I did a short dryland workout.  And, given that I haven't done dryland in a couple months and that the first dryland workout in a while is always a painful experience for several days afterwards, I'm guessing that for the next three days or so, every time I take a step I'll be reminded of how dumb I was to forget my skates tonight.

Stupidity...the gift that keeps on giving.