"The Decision 2010"

Lebron, Shmebron. Who's that?

A much more important decision occurred on my run this morning. The forecasted break in the heat and humidity did NOT happen and I found myself staring down the barrel of a +26C thermometer at 5:30am, and I'm sure with the humidity it was up there in the mid-30s. As I walked out my front door I was hit with a wall of air that felt thick and sticky. Yum.

But that's okay, I told myself. It would be another slow and steady run, which is the smart thing for me to be doing this year anyway. I felt pretty good and started off at a nice trot with no clue about the route I would be running. Ultimately I trusted my autopilot and headed down to the Lake and the boardwalk, just like on Wednesday. Everything was going fine until at about the 6km mark I was faced with "The Decision": find a washroom or tough it out?

If you are a runner you know exactly what I am talking about, and sometimes the decision is not always immediately clear. At that moment, as I heard a gurgle in my innards, I was not sure if that was just a "settling of affairs" or a prelude to disaster.

As I hit the halfway mark of my run at the end of the boardwalk my mind was made up: find a washroom or face the consequences. The boathouse at that point has a public washroom, which apparently is closed at that time in the morning. Strike 1.

I turned around and headed back down the boardwalk towards Kew Gardens, where I knew of another public facility. With every step I was praying for that washroom to be open, but upon reaching the door my tug at the handle proved otherwise. Strike 2!

Now I was faced with a Sub-Decision of "The Decision": search out another public washroom further down the boardwalk or turn up towards Queen Street and jump into the Tim Horton's that I knew would be open up there? It took about a millisecond for me to make up my mind and I was off, heading towards Tim's.

This marked the first time ever that I used a facility in a restaurant and not purchased anything. I felt bad for doing so, but I would have felt even worse had I continued without stopping. At least that is how I justified my decision...

Anyway, the rest of the run was not much better, but at least I was no longer a ticking time bomb. Shortly upon leaving Tim's the rains came pouring down and I had to wring out my shirt a bunch of times as my clothes soaked up water faster than a Sham-Wow and weighed me down. In the end I managed a decent 15km run, made all the better by "The Decision", which I believe was much more important than that Lebron guy's choice and I didn't need to hold a whole city hostage for an hour to do it.

Poor Cleveland. This morning I suspect many Cavs fans have intestinal pain akin to what I started feeling at about the 6km mark of my run. My suggestion is that they should all go down to Miami and relieve themselves on Dwayne Wade's front lawn (since I don't think Chris Bosh has had time to buy a house yet).