Taking time off is harder than it seems!

As I sit here typing at my keyboard, I’m into day 2 of not running and it’s killing me. I was going to take another day of tomorrow but I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to do it so I’ll go for a light run tomorrow morning.

I often get asked if running is difficult, but I think the thing that works best for me is that I try not to think about it. That isn’t to say that I don’t have “bad” runs from time to time but even the crummy runs are better than not running at all. One of my friend’s favorite sayings is that the bad runs build character and I would tend to agree with her.

I have this nagging little voice in the back of my head which tells me that my day isn’t complete without a run of some kind.

When I was at Wild Water Kingdom yesterday with my kids, there was a sign at the park that said “No Running!” I turned to my oldest and told him that that was a sign that I didn’t like. He just looked at me and laughed.

While I thoroughly love the races that I’ve done, the one thing I hate about them is the fact that I have to stop running for 2-3 days to rest my legs. Even though my legs thank me for the time off, that little voice in my head gets more annoying the more time I have in between runs so my mood gets worse as the week progresses.

I’ve often joked with my best friend that nobody truly understands how “sick” (and I use this term in the best possible way) we are. We’ve talked about doing a 50Mile race soon because lately our runs have been slower than usual and we always say afterwards how we could run for a few hours more. Well, when we do the 50 Mile race, we won’t have to worry about that as it will probably take us 12 hours to complete.

Now that my training has switched from speed to endurance, I find that I’m not in need of as much time off. Training for the Mississauga Marathon was the most grueling experience I’ve ever been through and though the results were not what I wanted or expected, I wouldn’t have traded that experience for anything. It isn’t something that I want to do more than once per year however as I do want to focus more on training for distance.

Sometimes I wish I could just relax more and enjoy my “down” time, but I find that running, while physically exhausting to most, is entertainment to me and it brings me as much joy as watching a movie, a night of dancing or reading a book does for others. My passion just happens to require a pair of running shoes (Alchemy Wave), dry fit shirts (Nike or Brooks) and shorts (Brooks).