"Keep breathing. That's the key. Breathe!"

I recently read somewhere that if you can run a mile in 8 minutes, you're in pretty good shape and will likely live longer than people who can't. A few days ago I got on a treadmill to prove to myself that I could still do it. I could probably have run faster, but haven't been feeling great lately, so didn't go all out. By the way, this is no great accomplishment. Competitive marathoners run twice that pace the entire 26.2 miles of the race.

It's one thing to run an 8 minute mile on a treadmill or on a track. It's a different matter all together when it's through an airport weighed down with luggage, dodging fellow travelers walking in both directions or just standing in the way.

Allow me to set the stage for this true story. United flight 991 from Orlando was scheduled to arrive in Houston at 8:19pm. Passenger boarding for my connecting flight 356, the last flight of the day to Orange County airport ended at 8:40pm. I already knew this connection was going to be tight. Having had to spend the night at the Houston airport several years ago after missing a similar flight, I was highly motivated to make my connecting flight. I was relieved when the inflight status showed our inbound flight ahead of schedule. I did not envy the older lady seated next to me who was catching a 14 hour flight to Sydney, Australia, and then another to Melbourne.

As we were approaching Houston, the pilot announced over the intercom the bad news that, due to thunderstorms just east of Houston, Air Traffic Control was rerouting us to the south to approach Houston from the west. The pilot estimated a half hour delay. Oh swell!

During the moderately turbulent final approach, I was thinking that I should have inquired of a flight attendant whether it was possible for those with imminent connecting flights to de-board before those who don't.

After a very wind buffeted landing, I am was very happy to hear a flight attendant request all those who did not have an imminent connecting flight to remain seated until those trying to make connecting flights had exited. I had selected an aisle seat towards the rear of the plane where I hoped to have an empty middle seat next to me. (Note to self- on future connecting flights with short layovers, select a seat towards the front, even if it's a middle seat.) As passengers SLOWLY exited the plane, I noticed only ONE person remained seated and did not de-board in front to back row order. (Seriously, people? How selfish and inconsiderate!)

As I exited the jetway and looked up to see myself at gate C14, a helpful United employee was offering gate information for connecting flights. My misinterpretation of information on the flight status app had given me the false hope that my connecting flight was only a few gates away in the same terminal. I was shocked and disappointed when the agent told me my connecting flight was at gate E19 (not B19)  in another terminal accessible only by tram! She told me I only had 9 minutes.

 

 

 

I had the choice to either surrender and consign myself to another overnighter on the hard floor of that airport (airport designers seem to always choose seats with individual armrests so it's impossible to lie horizontal on a row of padded seats)...OR try to make the flight. So, I decided to try. 

Off I ran carrying a large, heavy briefcase whose shoulder strap kept repeatedly slipping off my shoulder, and a relatively small roller bag, which I alternated between right and left hands. 

I'm dodging, passing, and otherwise trying to avoid collisions with people walking in both directions, including carts traveling slower than me that were carrying elderly or disabled persons to their respective gates. As I'm tiring, I keep repeating Gimli's advice when he's trying to run (in The Lord of the Rings movie) in my mind: "Keep breathing. That's the key. Breathe."  (Oh, did I mention that I've been sick with a head and chest cold, hacking up lots of phlegm and suffering equilibrium and dizziness problems? Yea. ) 

After arriving at the central terminal hub area, there were two long escalators carrying non-climbing passengers upward to the tram area. Rather than wait for people standing on the slow escalator, I decided to save precious time and take the adjacent long flight of stairs two steps at a time. I received quite a bit of feedback from my tired leg muscles while doing this.

Fortunately, the wait time for the tram was only about a minute, and during the brief ride, I was able to rest and catch my breath. When I exited the train and continued running towards the terminal E gates, I was first to the empty downward escalators and was therefore able to quickly descend the elevation differential I had climbed using the stairs. 

 

The signs pointing to the correct set of terminal E gates seemed to go on and on before I began to see actual gates. I was disappointed that my destination gate was not one of the first ones. I had earlier turned off my smart phone to conserve its remaining battery, as it contained my only boarding pass. I remembered to pull it out and turn it on so it would boot up and be ready to use once I arrived at the gate. As my body again began to fatigue from running down the long corridors, and dodging slow mothers with wide strollers through narrowed hallway construction zones, I thought to myself, with MY luck, it will probably be the very last gate at the end of this wing of the terminal. Sure enough, as I approached an obvious dead end, my heart sank when I saw what appeared to be the last gate with no gate personnel and red lights displaying near the boarding gate door suggesting the gate was closed and the flight had departed. I kept running and was relieved to see around a partition wall another gate with no passengers remaining in the terminal but a pair of gate agents. I dropped my luggage and collapsed onto the counter while uttering the phrase "delayed connecting flight". The agent responded with the most welcomed words, "you made it". 

 

I struggled to catch my breath while fumbling with my phone to find the email containing the hyperlinks to my boarding pass. They asked for my last name, but didn't seem to understand or find my name at first. They must have said something about there being plenty of seats because I asked if they had any exit row seat vacancies. They responded only a middle seat. I told them I would gladly take it for the extra leg room. I had inquired about being relocated to an exit row on the other 3 flights of this trip but each time was told only for a $100 upgrade fee. They must have had compassion for the pathetically panting passenger in front of them and gave me a boarding ticket for exit row seat 21B. As I briskly walked down the jetway and onto the plane aisle, they were both devoid of passengers, who were all already seated. Oddly, my assigned seat 21B was already occupied by a man who had an identical boarding pass for the same seat. The flight attendant said I could sit in empty exit row aisle seat 20C unless another passenger showed up with a boarding pass for that seat. As it turned out, I think I was the last passenger to board the plane. The 3 hour flight from Houston to Orange County was long, but uneventful, arriving at a time equivalent to 1:30am in the time zone I woke up in that morning.

These kinds of physically and mentally stressful events are one more reason why I'm grateful I don't have to travel frequently for work and don't envy those who do. My two cross country trips this month to Boston and Orlando were more than enough air travel for a while.