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| About to run! |
If you’re a runner, whether you’re training for a
certain event, keeping yourself at the peak of physical fitness, or ticking
along nicely at a satisfactory base level of fitness, we all have those runs. The
runs which are squeezed in before a twelve hour shift, their length cut in
half. Those that are on the treadmill when you normally run outside, or the
pavements when you prefer uneven, wild trail (sometimes for safety reasons,
sometimes weather related). Those run in an unexpected heat wave, or when you
forgot your music or your water bottle. The junk runs.
Factors that influence your run can be hugely varied,
all jostling for top spot in your ‘List of totally reasonable reasons I should
skip my run today’. Even if you do manage to silence your inner blerch and drag
yourself out when every fibre of your being is telling you that it’s not a
quality enough run to persevere with, you then make excuses to yourself as to
why your pace was dropped or you skipped stretching afterwards. Honestly, at
the most self indulgent and hedonistic level, I personally know that I am not
going to enjoy my crappy half hour run dodging through dead eyed crowds of
phone zombies whilst inhaling the exhaust fumes of the three lane traffic
circumstances have forced me into running along.
And I think to myself:
This
run is not even worth it. It’s a junk run. I’m not enjoying it, and I’m not
even pushing my goddamn boundaries. Why the hell am I doing this?
But I, most of the time, persevere. Why? I know that
every mile, or half mile or even quarter mile, is adding up to more. More time
on your feet, your heart racing to catch up, your muscle fibres microtearing
and repairing stronger than before. More synthesis of red blood cells, more
oxygen carrying capacity. More potential. So that the next time you have a day
off, and you’re standing at the edge of a forest about to start your long run,
you can enjoy it so much more. The fitness you built up minute by minute on the
runs that you wanted to skip counts towards something. That beautiful
experience of trees rushing past as your breathing becomes strong and regular,
carrying yourself forward. No suffering, gasping, stopping, stitches or cramps
or nausea. Just the feeling that you can run from one edge of the forest to the
other without slowing or stopping if you wanted to.
I think that feeling is worth persevering through the ‘junk
runs’ for.
Flatt7
