When life gets in the way

As a runner, I am not particularly fast.  Nor can I brag about my form.  Given that I have never made it through a marathon without a large dose of drama, I don’t really go on about distance either.

The one thing I do have, however, is commitment.  Even when I am not officially training for something, I have a personally-set minimum mileage that I do every week, spread out over approximately 5 runs.  I am quite proud of my consistency as it was something I developed over time and something that is entirely for me.  In the past few years, it hasn’t seemed to matter what life has thrown at me, I have been able to find a way to fit in my run, sometimes sacrificing sleep, or social gatherings, or chores.

This week, however, life is getting in the way.  And that happens sometimes.  Commitments all converge on the same time and space and leave you without the time, or maybe the energy, to get all of your runs in.

This is one of those weeks for me.  Without going into sordid detail, because we all have our “weeks-like-that,” I had to face the fact that I am not going to be able to get all of my runs done this week.

I have to tell you, I struggle with that. When I was new and starting out and making excuses to get out of running, this hard-line with myself was very helpful.  But now that my biggest running accomplishment is my consistency, I would have to say that the hard-line is a tool I can probably ease up with.

I seriously had to sit myself down for a little chat.  I had to remind myself that everyone has those weeks, that everyone misses runs, and that it’s really not that big of a deal.

I really had to give myself permission to have an “off-week”.  Not a week off, mind you, but a week where I don’t do all of my runs and don’t hit all of my numbers, and just have to get over myself and deal with it.

While I am still having some pangs of guilt, I know that this will be good for me.  It will be good to see, that once I am back in my routine, I got through the week and the world didn’t implode.  After all, I really am a runner for the fun of it, and if I am beating myself up, it really isn’t that much fun.