Never Say Never!

One of the things I love about the industry that I work in is that you meet some really interesting people.  When I was working as a field engineer in Laredo, TX one of my favourite characters was a company man called Frank.  He is just how I would figure a lot of oil field guys in Texas would be.  10 gallon hat, chewing tobacco, gruff and someone that you didn’t want to piss off.  But for as scared as a lot of guys were of Frank I enjoyed working with him.  He worked for a small company and every once in awhile he’d bring his wife and little Dachshund Jorge (pronounced George) out to location and he just doted on that little dog.

On Tuesday I had a big meeting with some partners regarding a project in the works for next year.  One guy is a super straight talking kind of guy.  I’ve been a little intimidated of him in the past but in this meeting I felt like he really listened to what I had to say and respected my opinion.  At one point in the meeting he said to me, “Leana, never say never as an engineer because as soon as you do you’ll be wrong.”

So, never say never my friends.  I had written off running the Last Chance Half.  Longest run to date in the last few weeks?  A 90 min 8.5 mi run.  In fact my last run was the Edworthy Park XC race on Saturday.  I had spent the 11:00 hour this morning convincing myself that it was too cold to run outside.  I had finished up lunch and had just swallowed a fun-size Snickers bar when the e-mail came through.  All of a sudden that little Snicker bar felt like a rock in the bottom of my stomach.

“…Leana is the next person on the waiting list so you can sell your bib to her…I’ll let the two of you work out the financial details but send me an email to confirm the change…”

Um…excuse me?  My name just came up on the waiting list for the Last Chance Half?  GULP!!!  What to do?  Well, here are the reasons why I think I should run it:

• The weather…knock on wood…is supposed to be really nice on Sunday.  And a race is a good excuse for a long run, right?
• I have a ton of Gu in my inventory right now.  This is a good opportunity to use some up, right?  (Yes, I keep my Gu in a massive beer stein.)
• The breakfast after the race is phenomenal.

So…guess who is running a half marathon on Sunday?  Within 4 hours of finding out I was running I had my race packet all picked up.  Wish me luck!!