Tough it Out

The weekend quickly disintegrated as plans to travel to a customer's plant in Garland, TX materialized. The urgent need to address a problem necessitated the change in weekend plans and had me on a flight to Dallas Friday evening. Thankfully the visit on Saturday went well and travel back to Georgia was complete. I can claim the visit went well for my objective was met; inspect and certify my company's product in the customer's facilities. But with every success there comes a price. The price for my success Saturday was a sore and aching body on Sunday. The work I did took its toll on me and muscles were protesting as a result.

I make that diatribe to reinforce how tough it was to get my long run in this morning. I typically make my long weekly run on Saturday but since I was inspecting iron castings yesterday I was not able to run. Sunday would have to be the day or I would miss my training schedule for this week. I arrived at my pity party this morning ready to justify just sitting on the heating pad and basking in my rebellion. Then I thought of the euphoria I would experience after completing the run and the discussion with my wimpy side was over; the run was on.

I have benefited immensely from my association with the circle of running fanatics with which I have befriended. I read daily of the accomplishments and victories experienced by these running warriors and it inspires me in times of ambivalence. I ended up having a great run. Sure my back was sore for most of the run and my arms dangled at my sides with much less of the strength and form I usually call on them to have. The run was a good one. I covered 10.36 miles in just under 1-1/2 hours for a respectable 8:35 average. A little slower than the 8:30 I wanted to run but much better than the result of playing hooky. Thank you, my faithful running community. You continue to instill in me a desire to tough it out and reach for a new and reachable challenge. Until the next opportunity...tomorrow in the pool.