If you call, I will answer

Yep. So about the time when I was dozing on my bed and trying to will myself to get up at about 6:05 my running group was heading out because they meet at 6pm on Tuesdays, not 6:30. Yeah. I have this funny tendency to lose my mind when I'm tired. So I arrive at the Running Room at 6:30 and don't see any of my running mates. I ask, perplexed, "where is C's running group?" to which I am rewarded with a look of surprise and pity. I am informed that they left half an hour ago. There is a shortcut to get to the hill which I must summit eight times, so I book it. I fly down 4th avenue with my stupid water belt cinched around my waist as I curse my own stupidity and harken back to the time that I showed up at Kwantlen for my 7pm Auditing class. Which was at 4pm. Kick ass.
I reach the hill and see J and K who are just coming back down the hill. Panicked, I gasp "what hill are you on?" and they reply they're heading up for their second. Cool. Only one hill behind. So what do I do? Tired, exasperated from the quick run there? I decide to do all that I can do to try and catch up. To the fast group. At one point I was running with the clinic instructor and I think he was trying to see how fast I could go (I believe this was hill five). I don't think I've ever come closer to puking, and I now I understand what fish must feel like when they lay gasping their last breaths as they flip flop on the sun bleached dock after being mercilessly wrenched from the sea by a couple of kids with some fishing string and a hook on a stick. I apologize now to all the sea bass I caught and used as crab bait when I was ten.
Chatted with one of the Running Room guys (I saw him at Granville and Broadway on Sunday when I was out with Big D and I said hi, but he looked at me, blinking) and he said that I "looked amazing". Right, now I remember why I do this. Accolades from hot young men. I said, "I said hi to you, on Sunday night? Broadway and Granville?". He looked at me for a moment and then said, "yeah... people look different in their normal clothes". Yes. We don't always look beet-faced and disheveled. Sometimes we even look half-way decent.
Finished my eight hills in what had to be record time. Met another nice person on the jog back. Returned Big D's call on my way home. He made mention that I had been an inspiration to make some changes in his own life. I am infinitely flattered. I am so happy that we are able to speak so freely and that he looks at me with anything more than a bemused smirk.
Spoke to Michael, who is returning from his vacation tomorrow morning. I said I would pick him up from the airport. It's good to be helpful. I'm glad that I have this network of friends that I can help out occasionally, and who feel they can lean on me from time to time, cause I know I've leaned on them.
And then: the perfect end to the evening! Totally fried, I collapsed on my couch with a nice glass of wine, half an apple and some nice cheese. Reading "The Accidental Tourist". Listening to some good tunes. Who can be anything but mellow listening to Crowded House, the Barenaked Ladies, Dido and Lisa Loeb?
I love my life.