There are days when, given a choice, I would choose to crawl underneath a rock and let the day pass without my knowing. Then, there are days where I am afraid that I will miss out on some critical moment if I were to go to sleep. I suppose, for self-preservation, there are reasons for either of these scenarios. Fortunately, for the kids and me, life doesn’t allow me to crawl under that rock. Still, there are those days.
As far as running goes, I have a similar set of choices. In the past week, I have allowed myself to be under that rock. Coach has allowed me this as well. But, last night the email came asking if I was ready to hit the road. My reply indicated that I wasn’t. Somehow, Coach knew that I would pull up the training plan online. Somehow, he knew that if he entered a few easy workouts that I might lace up and give it a try.
The weather has been perfect for running the past few days, and today was more of the same. At lunch, I laced up my shoes, stretched, and went in search of my happy pace. It wasn’t easy to find. First, there was that I-haven’t-run-in-over-a-week breathing. Then, my calf, ankle and foot all needed to let me know that they were stiff. You know, these are all side effects of being all crunched up under that rock.
Once the kinks were worked out, with a whole lot of stretching (before, during and after), I did find my happy pace…finally. I had about a mile to let my mind wander as my body took me for a ride. It is hard crawling out from under, but worth it.