Sacrifice

I stopped my friend Paul in the hall at work and asked him, “Do you and Loni want to go to the Foreigner concert in The Woodlands this weekend?”

“Maybe, when is it?” he replied.

“I think it is Saturday, but let me double check,” I answered.

“Oh crap! It is Friday, I can’t go,” I told him.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I have to run on Saturday,” I answered.

“So, what does that have to do with Friday night?” Paul asked.

“Well, we start at either 4:30 or 5 AM, I’m not sure which right now, but either way I have to get up about an hour earlier to get there on time since it is about half an hour from my house,” I told him.

“Why don’t you just run later?” he replied.

“Because then I will miss running with the group and I don’t even want to think about running 16 miles on a treadmill or later in this extreme heat by myself,” I replied back. “Getting up at 4:30 in the morning means I pretty much need to go to bed about 5:45.”

Ok, maybe it is not quite that bad, but it is not unusual for me to go to bed before 9 PM when we have a 4:30 or 5 AM start. No chance that I would attend this concert.

Maybe I would have had second thoughts if it was Van Halen, Boston or Fleetwood Mac, but I wasn’t even considering it for Foreigner (no disrespect, just not my favorite).

“So, you’re pretty dedicated to this whole running thing?” he asked.

“I’ve got to be, we’re running a marathon in September near Seattle,” I told him. “Honestly, I’d love to go to the show, but not at the expense of completely screwing up my Saturday.”

I told him, “You should come to check it out sometime, it’s a great group. You already know Dawn Johnson, she’s the one who told me about it. The next few weeks, up until the marathon, will be pretty advanced, but right after that are a few easy weeks. You ought to come then and check it out.”

“Maybe I will,” he replied.