A Needed Pick Me Up

It’s almost here.

And the closer it (the Turkey Trot) gets, the more I wonder “what was I thinking?” Yes, I’ve been working out since September, with all the ups and downs, bumps and bruises of your typical middle aged person trying to get in shape for a 5K run, but still I wonder. All my luck, it’s probably snow Thursday, or get tackled by the Occupy D.C. protesters who thinks I’ve been eating a little too good to be one of them.

My wonderful Washington D.C. lobbyist daughter is truly wonderful. Probably sensing I needed a little cheering up, she invited me up to Chicago last Saturday (Nov. 12) while she was in town helping her best friend Erika celebrate her birthday. Ashley’s job has an office in Chicago where she works periodically.

Obviously after not running for more than a week now, I’m getting a little antsy about the race and hoping this darn hamstring will finally heal. After years of giving her pep talks before some of her biggest races, she was more than happy to return the favor this Saturday night on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.

We stopped at Ghirardelli’s (she loves chocolate) while waiting for Erika to finish shopping. A good glimpse at my daughter’s personality could be summed up at Ghirardelli’s cashier line. We both decided to get hot chocolate, right? I walked up, ordered a regular hot chocolate, paid for the drink and walked away.

Then as I tapped my finger on the bar waiting, Ashley asked for a menu, discussed with the cashier the different types of hot chocolate drinks, considered getting it with cream or not, before deciding just to get a regular hot chocolate after all. This attention to detail has served her incredible well her entire life, despite driving me absolutely batty at times. She’s so her mother’s daughter and my pride and joy.

Ashley and Erika have been best friends since their freshman year in high school. Ashley attended Toledo Christian and Erika attended their rival Emmanuel Baptist. They both played basketball and in that first game between the two schools, they spent the bulk of the contest trying to beat each other's brains in. They met later at a summer minority law program at the University of Toledo and been two peas in a pod ever since.

After Erika joined us, we went out to Francesca’s and after a snafu in the reservation was cleared up by Ashley and Erika (that poor greeter at the door may never be the same) we were seated. We talked about (we’ll I listened and Ashley and Erika talked) about little bit of everything from the Thanksgiving race, family and lives in Washington, D.C. and Columbus. We also shared a lot of laughs – and good tonic for me at the time.

Then Ashley reminded me of her superiority by saying: “Wow, the race is almost here. I guess I need to get out and run a little.”

Mind you I’ve been working on this since September. I’m so jealous.

It was getting really late, close to midnight, and I still had to drive back to Lafayette. While we talked a little about strategic race strategy over pasta, sliced chicken breast (cooked to perfection) and tomato sauce, it was an enjoyable evening and made me feel a little better about the race and the upcoming weekend.

Here goes nothing.