The invite comes in from the Colorado Columbines: trail run at Green Mountain on 6/15 at 6:15; all levels welcome. Cool, right? Right. I’m in.
Grant gets home at 5:30, when traffic in Denver is, like most cities, not ideal. I run around like a mad woman, gathering my sunglasses and camera, while Amelia, my daughter, works herself up into a lather. She doesn’t want me to go. Why do I have to go? She really, really, really needs me to put her to bed tonight. Why do I never put her to bed?
I try to exit as quickly as possible, so I forget, among other things, my wallet.
Which isn’t that big of a deal—I live on the drivers-license-less edge like that—except that on C-470, a major highway, my gas light goes on.
I don’t know how much gas I have left in the Odyssey tank when Mr. Yellow comes on, but I’m usually close enough to home to not worry about it. This time, I’m not so good, as I don’t know how much farther I need to go. I only know I haven’t seen a sign for the exit I want yet. I try not to freak, and tell myself I’ll borrow money from my friend Katie when I get there.
So I drive and try not to freak, but I’m kind of freaking. I have visions of calling Grant, and having him load up despondent Amelia and tired Ben and a red gas can and drive 30 minutes to rescue me. I am not looking forward to that conversation. Think, think…
Sweet! I can steal from my kids!
We had hit a toy store with their $5 birthday gift certificate (read: a ploy to get parents to come in and spend $40) the day before, and her “wallet”–that blue box–was still on the floor of the car. Not nagging my kids to pick up their stuff can sometimes come in handy.
Phew.
But I’m late. I took this pic before I fueled up.
I have no cell number for Katie, my contact, so I send her an e-mail. She tracks down my number, calls me, of course, while I’m in pre-paying for the gas. I call her back, tell her to just go, and that I’ll be there before seven, hopefully.
I arrive around 6:45, and head out in search of the group. I forgot to mentally process the “mountain” part of Green Mountain, and am socked with a killer climb from step one. I need a stress-relieving run, not a self-defeating crawl. So after about five minutes of lung-busting climb, I see a fairly flat trail called Box of Rocks jut off the main path. The name isn’t inviting, but the grade is.
Fortunately, the only part of my body that touches the rocks are the soles of my shoes–no wipeouts–and I have no snake sightings. I don’t meet the group, but use the run to get a grip and come back to center. Victory.
I look much faster in that picture than I really went. I ran (painful, dry-mouthed) two miles out in more time than it takes me to run a 5k.
But I wouldn’t be dry mouthed for long. Coming back to the parking lot, there was a tailgate going on with watermelon, perfect plums, pizza, beer, homemade granola bars, among other goodies. My kind of tailgate.
Then the best part of the night started: chatting with a bunch of cool women about running and life. The green bucket is a clothing exchange; club members bring running clothes/equipment in good condition that they don’t want anymore, and anybody can take an item or two. On my rush out of the house, I forgot my stash, but a few women got some good stuff, including almost new trail shoes.
All in all, not a bad outing. I wish I could’ve done the seven-mile route that about half the women did, but there’s always next time…when I’ll have a full tank, my clothes to trade, a water bottle to carry and a firm grasp of where I’m going.
Who am I kidding? I’ll settle for one of the four.
Kid’s cash saves the day! Thank goodness you could make it to the party.
I just recently discovered the meet up group in my area. I love it! They have a 5 mile trail run tonight that hopefully I can make.
Dimity, we loved having you! But, I think next time we’ll have someone come pick you up so you don’t have to drive…
I am so jealous of that 85 degrees. It’s 97-99 here.
Funny, Kristen: I was going to comment on how hot 85 felt to me, but then remembered how not hot, in reality, that really is. Hope you’re not melting. :)
It was 85 this morning at 4:30 and I thought It was Spring. Hanging in there but it’s not easy running these days.
Sounds wonderful… stress and everything! (And so sad how much gas $9 *doesn’t* buy!) Next time will be even better!
Oh, you’ve just described almost every time I try and have a night out. BTW, this run, with these awesome ladies, sounded great.
Hi Dim~ not sure what year your Odyssey is but I have an ’07 and when my little gas light comes on it means I have 3 gallons of gas left. Yes, I sit on yellow so much that I finally looked it up. And I loved Amelia’s blue box. Samantha used a little yellow wood jewelry box forever until she scored a circa 1985 velcro wallet at a yard sale one day. She’s movin’ up in the world!!
*That* is great info. Thanks, Katie. Now I only need to know how many miles 3 gallons will get me. :) Love the velcro wallet. It’s impossible, for me anyway, to get the kids to keep their money all in one place.
This sounds and looks perfect! I met up with four other girls today to run a 5 miler out in the country around farms. Eveerything was so beautiful! I find running with others to be so encouraging!
Dimity
So…laughed at your posting, sounds very familiar. Then I started drooling over your bracelet next to your Garmin. Very cool! Any ideas where I cam pick one up?
Hey Other Julie–I got the bracelet from my mom for my birthday either two or three years ago (amazing I still have it.:)). I think she got it at Nordstrom.
This sounds so very familiar ……. I rush from one place to another, and the gas light goes on at times when it should not. Since we don’t have kids who could store money in the car and better half never carries cash, I try to leave small bills in the car for buying my Starbucks coffee. This little extra cash has saved my road trips more than once.
Sounds like you had a great run! And the tailgate party afterwards was definitely worth it :-)
bright side is you didn’t have to pay for your gas in all quarters saved for the horror of urban life, parking meters!
First – great and fun post! Life on the edge!
Second – those Costco Chocolate Covered Raisins are Da. Bomb. Period. They were the #2 choice for our van full of moms doing Wasatch Back (Ragnar Relay) over the weekend. (#1 was salty snacks!)
Last – 3 gallons in an Odyssey get you (worst case) 45 miles, up to (best case) 80 miles. And *they* say you need at least a gallon left to keep the thing from running dry, so I would say the safe margin for error would be 30 miles when Mister Yellow shows up.
Thanks for making me smile today!
Love it!
Agree with above 3 gallons (my Odyssey is a ’10 and my old one was an ’03 and it alerted at 5 gallons. I liked that alert way more given my tendency to procrastinate everything and live on the 10 minutes late to everything edge!) and the 30ish or more miles range above.
I confess that I also steal money from my children when desperate (what else can you do when the cash stash in the car is already gone?)
Love that. Is there one here in San Diego, anyone? :)
The map on the front seat is so me! I don’t have the technical skills or patience to use a GPS (oh, unless it’s my Garmin!). My kids leave money all over the place too although I’d be a bit embarrassed to pay for gas using my daughter’s sequined purse with lots of one dollar bills…might look a bit “funny” in a pole dancer sort of way. (she gets $3 a week allowance, just so we’re clear) Glad you had a good run! I think I might need to venture out into trail running with a group of women…need to find trails and women. ;-)
Dimity! I love it! I laughed all the way through this. The pictures were awesome. Just another day in the life of another Bad ASS mother runner! Glad you got some miles in. More importantly the post run M@M’s
OMG, you are hilarious. And so real.
Looks like you had a grand time in the parking lot. I love the idea of the “trade gear” bucket; gotta try that with my club (‘cept we have men, too). I hope you have by now reimbursed your daughter for her kind loan to get you through the evening.
I can totally relate to the first part of the story. I always get “Mommy, you’re going running AGAIN? Why do you always go running for?” In my mind my response is, “So I can keep having one ass instead of two.” Good job on the trail run and I always forget my liscense too!!
Stefanie, that is hilarious. We need THAT on a t-shirt! ;)
I had to laugh. I can’t tell you how many times my kids have had to pay for their own babysitters or field trips LOL.
Glad you got to at least tailgate with them!
D – I would love to give something like this a try! LMK if you are doing another and we’ll pool our gas money!
My kids try to give me a guilt trip for leaving them to run too :( Little buggers! Sounds like lots of fun :)