Running for a flight

I don't know what was meaner to my body this week: all the fast food I ate, or The Run.

After a long week on the road, it was time to go home.  Tonight I had a flight booked from Milwaukee (MKE) to Minneapolis (MSP) on Delta, a 50 minute layover in MSP, and then a flight on Alaska from MSP to Seattle (SEA). Normally, this would not be a problem.  I was feeling pretty good when my upgrade to first class cleared on the Alaska flight.

But then the storm slammed the East Coast, and snow fell in Dallas and Atlanta, thoroughly trashing the air travel system across the country.  Flights backed up and booked up.  My MKE-MSP flight was delayed.  The inbound aircraft was late. Once we got on, my seat was all the way in the back.  Still, I figured I would have time to make my connection.

As we sat there, that dreaded announcement happened. Mechanical delay.  And what caused this new delay? 

An overhead bin that wouldn't latch.  Seriously. 

They called for a mechanic who came over with his special tool -- a roll of tape.  He taped it shut.  Then we sat at the gate longer so they could to more paperwork.  After all that, we left 39 minutes late.

Generally, delays don't bother me too much, but this was different.  First I didn't want to lose my upgrade. Second, with the mess the airtraffic system is in today, I thought if I missed my flight, I wouldn't get another one for a couple days.

We got in 16 minutes late, but I was still in back row.  By the time I got out of the plane, I had about 10 minutes to make it across the MSP airport to make my connection. This is when I made my bad decision.

I decided to run. 

Part of my brain did the math and concluded this was my best chance to make the flight.  So I took off.  Things seemed to go well at first.

After about 300 feet, I heard Majel Roddenberry's voice come from inside my lungs.

"Warning.  System overload in progress. Warp core breech imminent. Commence automatic shut down."

At about that samestime, myhigher level brain functions came on and responed to the stressed out math section that computed the run, with, "What?! We're running? We haven't in 15 years! Knock it off."  So I stopped running and tried to walk.

I thought the run would be easy. After all, I run the in Wii Fit all the time.  And I can run for 13 minutes with little trouble.  But here's the problem.

The Wii Fit is easier beause I don't have luggage on me.

Plus running on the Wii fit is really more like jogging.

Plus it's not like real jogging; it's more like jogging in place.

Plus it's not really like jogging -- it's A VIDEO GAME!

So my brain listened to Majel and I stopped running.  It traded that for a quick walk, while the gate started paging me. I made it .  Barely.  I was the last one on the plane and they shut the door behind me. I"m actually a little surprised they didn't try to bump me for medical reasons with loud breathing noises I made.  They took just a cursory look at my boarding pass, and I nodded in response to their questions because talking over my raspy wheezes was just not going to happen.

So now I'm back at Starbase waiting for repairs to the warp core, and working on my own vessell overhaul. And I'm ready for the next adventure.