5.03 miles, 37:08
It wasn’t 108 degrees like Sacramento would have been but, it was still quite warm for San Francisco today. I ran around 3PM too which wasn’t all that bright. I always intend to go earlier or later in the day but by late afternoon on a weekend I’m pretty antsy to get outside. Today I dropped K. off at K&L for a tasting and then walked to the REI to hand over yet more money on moisture wicking shorts and shirts (more on that in a moment) and then walked back to the car, changed into the new shirt and took off towards the Ferry bldg. I got up to Broadway and turned back for home.
I thought K. would beat me home but, regardless I left that car without an important item: my house key. So when I arrived at home I was locked out. I went next store to the liquor store to use their phone to call K. No dice. I don’t know her number! We’ve been living together for eleven plus years and I don’t know her cell phone number. Now, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. For starters, her number, like all of the other numbers I need to know, is programmed into my cell phone. That would be the same cell phone that was sitting in the house. My hiptop is a little too big to be running with.
However, I work for a phone/internet company that makes a voice activated dialer. I can dial a toll-free-number to access my virtual address book. Unfortunately, to access said virtual address book I need to actually remember my pin. Which is not a number I ever need because once you sign in from your phone you can ask the service to remember you and not require you to sign in again. Remembering this password after you’ve run 5+ miles in the heat at pace, not so easy.
Basically, I had to wait. Patience is not one of my stronger points. In fact, it is not a point for me at all. K. turned up about 30 minutes later and all was well. Though I did forget to post about it until now. I guess I blocked it out of my mind.
My memory lapse does raise some issues however. I should be carrying a cell phone. My pal Dan is sending one I lent to him back to me for just this purpose. Hopefully I can put this older phone on my existing plan with T-Mobile (though knowing them and their sub-par service I kinda doubt it). This particular Nokia ought to be small enough for me to run with depending on the shorts I’ve got on that day.
Which takes me all the way back to how much money I’ve been coughing up to REI. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some REI. They are a co-op and I get money back in the form of dividends at the end of the year. Their gear is quality stuff and while the running section of their store is tiny at least they have a running (apparel) section. But, the cost of this technical gear is getting to be a bit insane. I paid $60+ for 1 pair of shorts and 1 white (and thus sun reflecting) shirt. I think the first manufacturer of technical running gear that gets their prices down such that you can afford to buy more than one pair at a time could capture my wallet and my heart.
