Train up

This afternoon, as I was thinking of wrapping up work, Andy IM'd me with the single word question, "Train?"

A dozen reasons why I didn't want to train up to small groups ran through my head: I had cones I wanted to take to practice since we never seem to have any; I had discs to take since we never seem to have enough; I had warmups to deliver to teammates, even though DanO picked up 10 for the team, thereby reducing my load to 2 for today's practice; I already had my car for the day, I'd have to pick it up later; there isn't a train station within 100 feet of the fields, which is how close I can park. All sorts of excuses not to train, but not really any valid reasons not to train.

So, I packed as minimally as I could, as we'd be running from the station to the fields, a half mile run plus or minus, left twenty minutes early, and went to catch the train. Tragically, I spent the whole train ride talking about me and my failings as an ultimate player these last few years, instead of, oh, I don't know, talking about him. Yeah, that would have been better.

Once we stepped off the train and jumped over the tracks, all while thinking, huh, wow, this is a crazy silly station with a bizarre layout, as we weren't crossing the tracks illegally or unsafely, Andy prompted, "Jog?" Uh, I guess if we're going to make it to practice on time, hustle starts now, and off we went.

About a quarter mile into the run, Andy asked me, "Do you run regularly?" I thought the question odd, but answered, "I try to, yes," then asked, "Why? Am I slowing down already?" We were running at a nice clip, faster than I would have run on my own, more his pace than my pace, but I didn't think I was yet struggling to keep up. He commented, "No, you're just not breathing hard."

Huh, what do you know? No, i wasn't, but, dang, that was the nicest compliment I've had in a long time. Maybe he'll stop flustering me as much.