A run and some therapy

Last night at around 8 PM Shan and I had the kids to sleep and it was decision time: Go for a run or go to bed. I had just completed a routine day: getting the kids up, getting them dressed, dropping them off at daycare, putting a day in at work, meeting the family at home for dinner and directing at least 1/8th of the food into the kids bellies and not at each other or all over the floor, refereeing during playtime, trying to keep the water in the tub during baths, reading some books and executing the bedtime routine. Normally that doesn’t tire me out, but last night I felt tired and sluggish. I think it was allergies. I had a headache, sore throat and felt achy. I really didn’t feel up for a run. But I ignored what my body wanted, which was rest (and ice cream) and new the right decision was to just get my butt out for a run. So I dragged myself out for my standard 7 ¼ mile route.

The very first step of my run woke up the enormous blister (compliments of my feet being out of running shape and then doing a 14 mile trail run on Saturday) on my left foot. Uhhh… Oouch! Ok, ignore the blister. My next focus was getting the hip warmed up. It was stiff and sore and my legs didn’t want to turn over very fast. I had difficulty settling into any kind of smooth stride. It kinda felt like I was making a run for the border through a mud bog with drugs smuggled up my ass. I concentrated on pushing through and warming up, but it was as if my body was yelling at me “Are you stupid? Are you not getting any of my signals? Do I need to inflict more suffering to get you to go home and to bed?” My lungs began wheezing and I developed a cough. Wtf? I was having difficulty catching my breath. It then became apparent that it was not as warm out as I thought. I only had a thin layer on with no gloves or hat and I started to get cold. Freezing actually. My hands were numb and the wind picked up when I turned onto a less sheltered street. You got to be kidding me. I’m just going for a 7 mile run and I feel like I’m on some epic journey across a frozen tundra. Then my ankle started to scream, reminding me that I rolled it on Saturday and that it didn’t like me right now. What is this the first run of my life? I thought to myself, tonight is perfect justification to the anti-runners of the world that running is just plain stupid. Why punish yourself when you can be eating ice cream and watching TV?

But as I agonized my way through each stride, I couldn’t help noticing how awesome the sky looked. There was a cool afterglow of the sun which had set an hour ago and the stars were out in force. As pitiful as my run was going I still was enjoying just being outside and happy that I was on my 2nd run in three days as opposed to 2nd run in 3 weeks. I completed the route in 1:07 which was the slowest I’ve ever run that route. But I think it was one of my most satisfying runs. I had no business running last night but I knew I needed to get out. And I’m glad I did.


I had my first therapy session today. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I called the office a few weeks ago to set up an appointment and the receptionist said that she could “Do me on Tuesday at 1:30.” Very nice. “Therapy is going to be great!” I thought.