Not Running

We runners see lots of inspiration. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, even a simple search on Google Images will turn up a wide array of tips on getting out the door and fighting inertia.

It’s a battle I fight every day, as well. But today I’m up against something different. I’m telling myself not to run.

I did 5x800 Saturday and then rested Sunday as is my custom. After church Sunday I seem to have eaten some food that did not agree with me and I spent a couple days with a stomachache, then feeling that all-around soreness you feel when you’re on the back end of being sick. I prudently skipped my Monday run, knowing I wasn’t too far off of making my weekly and monthly goals.

Then Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:45 with a stomach that felt like it was bowling a perfect game. Made it a rough morning. I probably could’ve made it through a four-miler, but it’s everybody’s nightmare to be caught out there with no place to go. So I scratched today’s run as well.

Part of it is that while I love to run, I don’t want it to take up too much time in my life. I don’t want to become subservient to my running habits—I want to give myself permission to skip a day or two as the situation dictates.

The challenge here is that skipping Monday and Tuesday make it harder to meet my weekly (20) and monthly (95) mileage goals. So while I can be OK with skipping a few days due to illness, it seems I’m not fully able to let go of my weekly goal streak (24 weeks) or my monthly streak that sits at four.

I have to admit that the best thing out of all this was the sleep. I stayed home from work Monday and slept an extra three hours, which is better than staying home from school and watching game shows like Press Your Luck when I was a kid. Kind of felt like I was playing hooky from school.

It turns out running is easy. Not running is hard.