Bagging It

On Tuesday morning as I stepped out the door to run, I was feeling, well, rather droopy. The legs ached, the eyes blurred, and whatever I ate the night before really did not like all the bouncing around in my innards, as I tried to get the ol' gray horse moving. As a rule of thumb, I try not to make any decisions about my runs until about 2 miles into it. Sometimes I start out feeling like I'm on a death march, only to find myself gliding along effortlessly, humming a tune in my head, and occasionally out loud, enjoying the moment. Other times, I start out feeling great, only to find myself cursing the very thought of one more step as I trudge along, just wishing someone would drive by, throw a brick at me and knock some good sense into my thick skull. But, on occasions, there are days like Tuesday...

From step one I could tell that the morning run was not going to be a good one. Even when I passed the "sexy middle aged" female runners group, I could not pull off a studly prancing stride. I simply grunted a barely audible grumpy old man "good morning" whispering under my breath, "not that there is much good about it!" As I hobbled along by them. Ugggh! All I could think about was that the coffee was brewing and my wife was at home in our nice, soft, warm bed while I am out here with my steamy hot bad breath (unfortunately I forgot to brush my teeth before the run) shooting up my nostrils, my forehead dripping in a pool of saline solution, and hoping that each time my stomach roared, well, lets just say, I was sure hoping my shorts were gonna stay dry! But as I have stated, I have a two mile rule...

Unfortunately, this morning I had decided to take a loop route and by the time I reached two miles I was feeling even more miserable! To make matters worse, the shortest distance back home was exactly two miles. The plan had been to run 8-10 miles, but I decided to bag the morning run and send the horse to the glue factory. Finally, I dragged my achy butt on home, poured a cup of coffee, I would have crawled back into bed, but my wife has this thing where if I am sweaty, I am not to get near her or back in the bed, sheeesh, and called it a running day. All before the sun peeked its little rays of sunshine over the Sierras to wake up the rest of civilization.

One of the lessons that I am learning as an aging athlete, in which momma never said there would be days like this, is that some days, the poor old body just can't muster up the energy and strength for the task, or at least for the task to be easy or enjoyable. I still managed to log day 102 and I did feel better on day 103, but as I head out the door here in a few minutes, I wonder...