A Weak Week

Joy here...For the last week I was out of town for work (Nov. 12-19).  I wrapped up a number of work-related duties into a 7 day period which had me driving a lot and fitting a lot of socializing and working into a short period of time.  What this means for my running is, well, that I didn't do a whole heck of a lot of it.  I've written about the trials and tribulations of travelling and running, but it's worth it to take a moment to relate my tale of running woes from this past week.  On my first day out of town I was lucky enough to be staying over at a friend's house, and this friend is a runner, so she and I went for a nice, easy 5km run on Saturday morning.  However, after that, for the rest of the week, I didn't do any running at all.  Nilch.  Nada.

Which gets me to an interesting point, one of the reasons that I took up running in the first place (in addition to the fitness, health, and social benefits) is that it is the kind of sport that is easily transportable.  I mean, instead of needing to take one's whole team along every time one goes on a trip, all one needs is a pair of running shoes.  Instead of planning one's vacations based on where there's a lap pool, all one needs is a pair of running shoes.  No heavy equipment, bikes, or other paraphernalia needs to be accounted for, all one needs is a pair of running shoes.  You get my point.  However, I've now discovered that even if one has one's running shoes on hand, one little, extra bit of effort is necessary.  It's too easy to think "oh, I'll run whenever there's a break in my schedule," or "oh, I'll have time to run."  When, in fact, it's probably a whole lot more likely that you'll run if you actually take the time to put it into your schedule.  I should have planned to wake up earlier than my hosts so that I could run before breakfast and coffee.  Or I should have made firm plans to run with friends/colleagues while away.  Or I should have made sure that I was eating regularly so that if I did have an hour to myself I'd have enough energy to run.  There are so many shoulds that I won't list them all here.  Suffice it to say, I should have been a little more thorough in my plans to include running on this trip beyond throwing a pair of shoes in my car.  So the moral of this tale is that planning to run while travelling is only going to happen if there is, in fact, a plan to run, not an idea to run.  The two are not the same.

And I suspect that this is the same problem with running in general.  Until you've made running part of your weekly/daily routine, it will very easily fall by the wayside as things pile up and demand your attention.  At least that's how it was/is for me.

Now that I'm back home, I've decided that I have no more excuses, and I just have to get out there and run.  So even though I'd taken an unplanned week off running, and even though I was dead tired from driving for 5 hours to get back home, and even though I didn't feel like doing anything but curling up in bed, The Man and I bundled up to face the cold, November wind and go for a run.  Originally I thought we'd be out there for around 12kms, but HA!!!, that wasn't going to happen.  So we ran our regular, short loop around the canal, and everything hurt.  My shins, my collarbones, my knees, my quads, my arms, my shoulders, and even my ears!  But I just grit my teeth, resurrected my lamaze breathing to get through the discomfort, and kept on going.  All-in-all, we lasted just under 9kms, and I'll be getting my butt out the door again today.

Here are my run stats after a week of nothing:
Ran for a total of 52:33:60 for a distance of 8.81km with an average pace of 5:58min/km.

Over and out,
Joy

PS - Now I just have to sit tight and wait for Nomi's blog entry about her half marathon!  I won't spoil anything, but we text messaged her yesterday to find out how it went, and SHE'S AWESOME!  I'm so proud of her; she's such a talented runner.  But I (like all of you) will  have to wait for her entry to get the full details...