Running is therapy

I feel like a phony. I am sitting here in my sweat clothes all packed in for the day doing nothing but having a few beers and surfing the web. I know I didn’t run or workout yesterday. Same goes for today. And on tap for tomorrow? Same thing.

I hate it, I am miserable. The only consolation is that right this minute, my hip doesn’t hurt all that bad. I am hopeful that I am on my way to recovery and this is but a blip on the screen. P.S. Ice on you groin/hip in winter…not as good as you might hope.

All this self pity led me to start surfing del.icio.us. And more importantly, running related links on del.icio.us. There are some interesting items to be mulled over there. Check them out.

One thing I wanted to cover in a post, and this post is as good as any, is the topic of speed and how it relates to one’s runningness.

Over the last year of running I have come to firmly believe that if you are miserable during a run, you are going too fast. Running, for myself and a lot of people, is very enjoyable. I don’t think I am all that different from everyone else. I think that when I started running this time I committed myself to longevity not speed, and it has made all the difference. My proudest current PR is that of having run for 10 months with out a significant break. And none of the time I have taken off is because I wanted to lay around and be lazy.

I credit my current love affair with running to three things. The first is that I transfered a lot of the ill feelings I had with smoking over to running (nice work if you can get it). The second is that I truly recognize all the wonderful things running does for my mind and body and can’t imagine my life with out it (well I can, and if it’s anything like the last few days, stuff it). Last but not least is that the very first day I put my sneakers on the ground, I said to myself that the goal was not to ever go fast or far, but to run, consistently for a long period of time. Longevity, that was my goal.

So far so good.