Struggling with Running

This week is going by pretty quickly...here it is Thursday morning already! :) I'm looking forward to the weekend, but unfortunately, have 4 hours of remotes that I get to sit through.

Things in Klamath Falls are not exactly what you'd refer to as stellar...one of our major car dealers has closed, McMahons Furniture is out of business, Gottschalk's has filed Chapter 11, and quite a few little restaurants have shut their doors. It might be really interesting around here the next year or so. Hopefully our new administration will figure out some way of improving the economy.

I went for a little run with Janet last night after work. I decided yesterday afternoon that it was time to get back into a regular running schedule. I ran Monday, but skipped Tuesday, rationalizing my laziness by saying to myself: 1) I'm 54 2) my knees are shot 3) my back hurts when I run 4) one leg is shorter than the other one 5) it's dark 6) someone might attack me 7) I might get a blister on my toe 8) if I collapsed and died I might not be found until the next day (mainly because no one at home would miss me) 9) running is too much work...I'll lift instead (fat chance of that!!!) 10) it's too cold 11) there's a rabid dog just before the 1.5 mile marker 12) the run is uphill into the wind...both ways. All of them are good excuses, but that's just what they are...EXCUSES!! With that in mind, I told Janet that I was gonna go for a run...and then headed home to sit on my backside and watch TV. Fortunately, Janet decided that she was going with me, so when I walked through the door she was ready to go...so much for being lazy!

The run started off badly...my knee hurt, my back hurt, I couldn't catch my breath...pretty miserable. I almost started walking before I hit the first mile marker, and decided that my total run would only be 2 miles...after all, we had to pick Doug up from practice, so there wasn't enough time to go farther. By the time I hit the turn around point for 2 miles, I had decided that it was time to quit making excuses and just run. I wound up running 4.5...the last 2 miles actually felt pretty good. Those of you who are runners (I guess we can include cyclists in here too) know that there are days where everything feels good...you feel like you're running like a gazelle, and you notice birds singing, bees buzzing, the blue skies...everything is wonderful. Then there are days where you feel like crap...you're wearing lead shoes, mosquitoes attack you, you have a 40 mph headwind, every house you pass has a vicious dog, everyone you see on your run points at you and laughs...everything sucks. That's how I felt last night. That's when you need to suck it up...put all the excuses to rest and just GO!! Now that the run is done, I'm glad I went...and I can hardly wait to go again.