The Force Is With Us...

As you may remember today was the OUC Half Marathon. The race that I've been training for the last 3 months.

I woke up early enough to do all my morning preparations. I had planned to be Downtown Orlando by 6:30am in time to pick up my race packet before the race. Nick was to accompany me so he could take pictures and hold my stuff.

Before walking out the door, I went through my mental checklist of race must-haves: ipod, Ensures, towel, flip flops and camera. I looked at my purse and I said..."I won't need it". As we walked out, I looked at Nick and said "You're driving right, because I didn't bring my keys" as he replies "yeah" and closes the door. Standing in front of the car he checks his pockets and realizes...he doesn't have the keys AND had locked the front door (from the inside).

The impenetrable door
So now it's 6:10am, it's still dark outside and we're locked out of our house with no car keys. As I realize what just happened and try to take it in, my initial reaction is anger and frustration.

Nick tries to take it all in and goes into problem solving mode. So, what's the plan: we try windows, garage door and sliding doors...all locked as they should be.

No key to drive
Fortunately, Nick did have his cell phone on him. I start calling my nearest living relative, my aunt, at home. I think she has a key but I'm not sure. I get No answer, no machine! The call is not going through at all. I keep trying for the next 10 minutes with no luck. I can't call her cell phone since I don't know it by heart because I have it saved on MY cell phone.

I try my mom, dad and sister's cell phone with no answer either.
Then Nick comes up with the plan to call a taxi...Great idea! So, we'll take a taxi downtown and I'll make the race. But what about after the race??? We still can't get into our house. Therefore, I wanted to get a hold of my aunt before she left the house.

OH, did I mention that as I'm pacing on the driveway making frantic phone calls fire ants had covered my left foot?!?!? Yeah! By the time I realized it, it was too late. They were inside my shoe and all the way by my toes...unbelievable! At this point, I'm ready to cry...actually more like scream but I don't.

I take off my shoe and slap it around a couple of times to get rid of the ants. I could not figure out where the ants had come from since I didn't step on the grass at all and it was still too dark to see them. We later saw that they have formed a path down the middle of our driveway to the garage...apparently Thanksgiving trash left a trail. The only way to avoid them was to get on top of the car, which I did.

So, it's 6:45am now...nobody has answered and the taxi hasn't come. I finally get a hold of my sister who grogily answers the phone. I say, "Stacy, get mom!" to which she replies "Why?". I think..."I'm calling you "in the middle of the night" you should never ask 'why' ...just do it!" but I briefly explain my urgency and she wakes mom up. I explain to my mom what just happened quickly and I ask for my aunt's phone number. Before I hang up my mom says "Stephanie, these things happen for a reason, you're not meant to be there, something was going to happen to you guys". I say "ok" and move on. My aunt still doesn't answer her cell phone so Nick says "we should have the taxi take us to her house rather than downtown". I say "yes that's better".

So, right about then the taxi shows up and we get to my aunt's house. Fortunately, my aunt's husband is awake already and answers the door. I explain myself again and he says "I think she has a key"...great. So we get into his car and drive back to the house. In the car ride, I asked "Did you bring the house key?" and he replies "yeah, I brought her key ring". I'm thinking I hope she keeps the house key in the same key ring as her housekeys. When we get back home, we can't get in through the gate since we don't have our scanners and nobody's home so we have to park outside the gate and run home. We tried all the house keys in the key ring and none of them work. OK, so back to square one...go back to the house and wake my aunt up so she can tell us where our house key is.

As we're driving back to her house I feel my toes! Normally, you don't feel your toes. I feel them touching each other and they feel like they're huge. When we get to her house, she's already awake and gives us the key. I then look at the clock. The race starts at 7:30am. It's 7:20am and we're not even at our house or in the car so I tell myself 'it's OK I'm just not gonna make it". I take my shoe left shoe off and my toes are swollen to twice their size and my whole foot is bright red. My aunt looks at my foot and she says "oh, you can't run like that". I think I could've but unpleasantly.

Finally, we drive back to our house with the key and get in. By this time, I'm already starting to laugh about the whole ordeal. The whole week I kept thinking I wasn't ready for this race. I had slacked on training for the last month. The longest run I'd had in November was 6 miles which is not good. I knew chances were high that I would injure myself at this race but I didn't care since I had already told myself that I was going to take a break from running for a while. Hence, I'd like to think that something kept me from that race for my benefit. A Higher Force was definitely with us today.

P.S. Nick took all the cheesy pictures so that we could have a blog entry