In April I ran the Boston Marathon and clocked a personal best. I’m feeling guilty because I’ve run three times in the past three weeks.  A little more than a week ago I ran at midnight for the Firecracker 5000, and somehow, after not running regularly, I ran my second fastest 5K time and finished first in my division (50+ women).  Today, I had every excuse not to run.  Being a temporary single parent doesn’t leave any time between work, meals, taxing a teenager and reconstructing a kitchen to train.  It’s amazing how easy it is to make excuses and convince yourself that you’ll get started tomorrow.

It doesn’t help that I don’t have a current goal.  No marathon, half marathon, or 10K on the horizon.  I do know when motivation is low, it is better just to pull on your running clothes and shoes and head out the door.  I dropped my daughter off at her ballet class and made my way over to the outdoor track a few blocks away.  I assumed that I could do some speed work by running a series of 400 meter intervals with 200 meter recovery periods in between.  That way if I felt awful by the second repeat, I could just take a leisurely walk around the track and/or neighborhood.  In truth, I knew in the back of my head that I had been up to seven repeats three weeks ago and if I had kept up with the training schedule I would be at eight repeats.  A half of an hour later I had completed my eight repeats and I had totally forgotten my aversion to training.  I made time to stretch, refill my water bottle and pat myself on the back.

Tomorrow, perhaps I won’t think about why I can’t run, but rather when I can.  And by running tomorrow I’ll be automatically 200% ahead of last week; pretty impressive for a woman without a goal.