being relaxed at running

Sometimes being a relaxed runner means that you don't run at all...

I want to run. I'm not at that mental place that most runners come to where you dread going out for a run, where tying on your shoes is a chore worse than cleaning the toilet, where every ounce of you is screaming that the couch is the place your butt belongs.

No, I want to run. I look out my car window as I go here & there about my errands that make up life and see other runners sporting their running tights or baggy shorts, legs pumping, looking fit and graceful, and I long to be out there too...But, it's just not happening.

For more than a year, I've lived with all these What-Ifs floating around like I've been living inside some chaotic snow globe that a cruel giant keeps shaking and not waiting for all the glitter to settle before she picks it up and shakes the globe again. Well, all that glittery snow is beginning to land. I'm trying to settle into a new routine. Now that I've finally moved to Lebanon, now that Glenn and I are married, now that budgets are created and work is settled and a one-year plan is drafted...Well, now I've got to figure out where that little glittery piece that says "RUN" on it fits in.

And I DID just come back from a week at Disney World. I did do that half marathon, I did spend seven straight days walking on my feet (and even running 13.1 miles), so I guess a week or two off is well deserved...But, I miss running. The one, quick run I went on last week, 2.2 miles, was squeezed in to a Wednesday full of chores & Claire-care & dinner prep & laundry & looking at a house to see if we want to buy it...I had 25 minutes to run and that's what I did (21:14 for the run and 3:46 for a shower) and while it was great to be on the road on a glorious day, I was so stressed to run and be back within my narrow window, that it was hard to listen to my body, to settle my mind, to rest in the rhythm of the pace. It wasn't really relaxed at all.

So, I'll wait. I'll wait until I can run MY way - with as much time as it takes to run whatever miles I feel like running that day. No plan, no pace goal, just me and the road and my shoes and the sun.