Changing Up the Routine

While at my weekly sport's massage today, I was lamenting that I feel like my whole life right now is centered around running. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it and am enjoying it beyond belief and would not trade this experience for anything, but there are times I need a break.

Tonight was supposed to be the usual 9 miles to Crossroads for pizza and beer. My life instead would have other plans. While on the drive home, I got stuck in gridlock traffic causing me to take over an hour to get home which meant that I was already late for meeting up with everyone on the run. I figured I could cut off a few miles and be ok, but I was pretty sore from the working on my quads. As I was stuck in traffic, I looked at my Facebook to see that a former teammate of mine had posted about a pickup foursquare game. Let me back up a bit.

Three years ago, my friend Sarah convinced me to join her in her foursquare league. Having met playing kickball years before, I figured it would be a blast as it was yet another playground game. It turns out that these people mean business! I pretty much stunk, but had a blast and continued with it for two seasons. For some reason, mainly the perpetual blizzard, I missed every game last year. The season was cancelled this year and they are just now having practice to prepare for the world championships. Reading the message on Facebook solidified my decision. I would skip my run, only to make it up tomorrow or Saturday and head on over for a solid 1.5 hours of cardio.

While I would like to pretend that all of a sudden I was a rockstar at the game, I would be lieing. In truth, I still pretty much stink, but not as bad as before. I had a blast and forgot how crazy of a workout it really is. You are running after the ball and doing shuffles to try and get the ball into another square. Am I sad I missed Crossroads? Of course as it is always a fun time. Am I glad I went to foursquare? 100% as it was great to see everybody and reconnect with an old hobby. Sometimes you need to find that balance whether intentional or not. Now how to explain ditching next Tuesday's track practice for a Bruin's game?