For the past couple of weeks I have been avoiding my running shoes.  It started with just one missed run.  I didnt wake up in time to go for a quick jog before meeting my friends so I blew it off.  Then I didnt feel like running the next day so I watched TV instead.

Fast forward to this weekend and I was actually dreading getting back on the road.  I was afraid that because I had been slacking off for so long that I would have a horrible run.  I was coming up with all kinds of reasons not to run today, like “If I run today and have a bad run I will be discouraged and not want to run anymore.”  and “I am going to embarrass myself out there huffing and puffing and getting nowhere”.

After sufficiently freaking myself out I realized that there is not a person on this earth that cares even a little bit how fast or slow I run, or even how I look when I run.  In fact walking seems to be the exercise of choice here in Italy, and I don’t think the little old ladies running their morning errands are going to be judging my running style very harshly.

Reading Suzie Storm’s blog post “I’m still a runner…” put things into perspective for me.

http://www.suzistorm.com/2011/04/im-still-runner.html

I included the link if you want to check out her post, it is a good read and it helped get me off my couch this morning and out for my first jog in weeks.

The run itself sucked, just like I thought it would.  My body felt heavy; I don’t mean “I should lose a couple of pounds” heavy, I mean unnaturally heavy, like I was running through a vat of mud.  Instead of going around my normal loop I just started my Ease Into 10k (EI10K) app and did a run/walk combo.

I don’t feel like I got a great workout in today, but I got my heart pumping and I spent the morning in the sunshine instead of curled up on my couch so I am calling it a success.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better run.