The worst workout ever.

Yesterday my goal was to run 7 miles. I actually was in pretty good spirits. I figured the run would be tough, but it's something I could accomplish.

I decided that since the weather was alright that I should try and run outside. (First mistake. I should have gone to the gym. Experiments are not for long runs.) I'd been meaning to check out a couple of parks down 275S and figured this could be a fine time for that.

Well I left work at 500 and that's probably the worst time for traffic. I think that 94E will be sorely congested so I take a more circuitous route which really eats into my time. Then as I am quite close to the park, there is a massive detour that sends me practically back to Ann Arbor, winds me and 300 other cars through some dinky towns with 4 lights that only send about 4 cars through at each turn. The annoyance is only slight at this point. I am trying to tell myself to chill out. I knew it would take a while to find the park.

It's now about 615. I have been in the car for 75 minutes and there are still no signs for this park. WTF, for sure. I finally find it and realize that it could not be more poorly marked. It's not in my head.

Now it's 630, I enter the park and the one day I'd like there to be someone in the booth, there isn't! Okay, a map would have been nice at this point.

I drive around this rather unexciting park looking for the so-called paved trail. At one point, I think I find it but actually it's a long walkabout path for a playground. Annoyance is starting to morph into aggravation. I get back in my car and continue driving around.

I don't like that there really aren't many people at all. It's scary enough to be a female in unfamiliar territory, let alone rather empty territory. To top off my frustration, there is nothing redeeming about this park. It's vacant. There's a lot of black top. I am thoroughly unimpressed.

I finally make out what seems to be the path. I park and at this time it's about 645. My aggravation is climbing a steep crescendo at this late point. Since this drive took much longer than I figured, I wasn't prepared for the gnawing feelings of hunger. Aye aye aye!!! Now, I'm pissed off from sitting in my car, fed up with this park and starting to get hungry. Terrific. Just terrific.

So I start plodding along waiting for some swell of athleticism to dwarf my personal frustrations. I think that maybe I can channel this raging energy into the best workout of my life. I hold onto that hope for about a mile. Then I see the path and it has to cross a major road!! What nitwit planned that!!! I tell myself to just go with it, see it as a mere obstacle but nothing to overwhelm my determination. I keep trying to tell myself positive thoughts. . . but then. . . nothing. . . nothing.

Call it the wall. Call it the pms monster. Call it a bad mood on the wrong day in traffic.

I was done. I was hungry. I was swatting mosquitoes. I was in the middle of nowhere. I was thinking it would take me 45 minutes to return home and by then it'd be 8:00 and I had nothing productive to show for my day. The frustration turned annoyance turned aggravation was now a full rage. I pictured myself as a tea pot and then steam boiling over my head and the whistle is just blaring and shrieking.

That was it for me. I couldn't even run back to the car. I turned off my iPod and walked back like the sorriest sulking twit ever.

Better luck next time.