Skip to main content

No Excuse is Good Enough

Damn it was cold!
I woke up Saturday morning with little interest in meeting my group for a run. It was so bad that I thought of texting Sue to let her know that I wouldn't be there and I started of thinking of all the excuses I could use to cancel. The included the following:

  • I'm tired! Although very true because I got only five hours of sleep, it is a totally lame excuse.
  • It's cold outside. Well this is not an excuse because I LOVE running in the cold and my running buddies know this.
  • I don't feel good. This was true too but it was self inflicted. I know better than to have a draft beer at a grungy concert venue but I did it anyway the night before. Just two beers gave me a hangover.
  • I have a cold. This would have been a flat out lie and I get annoyed when people tell me lies regarding anything. People can see through this stuff and then you become the unreliable running buddy. Forget that.
So what did I do? I crawled out of bed. Took Dukie out, gave him his medicine, sat on the floor with him for 10 minutes and finally put on my clothes. I got in my car and let it warm up for a little bit and begrudgingly drove to the high school. I found Sue sitting on a bench and I sat down next to her and told her I was planning on cancelling. She was trying to think of an excuse to cancel to. But you see we committed to training for this half marathon together and neither of us could come up with a good enough excuse that the other wouldn't have thought totally lame so there we sat getting ready to go out for our run.

We decided we were going to take it slow and stick with the group the entire time. Within a quarter mile we knew this wasn't going to be an ordinary run. The hills, oh the hills... Did I mention the slushy snow that was also bordering the streets we were running on? Oh yeah, that added to the challenge too... 

But we did it!

This is how I felt going up some of the hills. 
We ran up and down hills through a neighborhood that challenged us to the core. The pace leader likes hills so every time we started going up a hill, our pace quickened. And it seemed as though we went uphill a heck of a lot more than going down hill. 

After twisting and turning through the neighborhood we were back at the school. And you know what happened? We exchanged comments on how that was a good run and we were glad we did it. I also mentioned to someone how I am never disappointed that I made it out for a run.

Moral to this story? No excuse is good enough to cancel. 


Comments

  1. Nita SweeneyJanuary 27, 2013 at 10:14 PM

    Way to tackle those hills! Great to see you running and healthy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MandyJanuary 29, 2013 at 1:23 PM

    What a fantastic post! I love those types of runs.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LaurieFebruary 1, 2013 at 8:43 PM

    You are awesome. But you already know that!

    ReplyDelete
  4. KristenFebruary 10, 2013 at 4:45 PM

    "I also mentioned to someone how I am never disappointed that I made it out for a run." This sums up so exactly how I feel about exercise! I have been feeling lazy this week and every night after work I try to worm out of exercising. But I do it anyway, and I'm always--ALWAYS--glad that I did. I need to make that my mantra and remind myself of that often.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Have Multiple Sclerosis

One of my favorite bike rides ever! I have debated whether I was going to make this public for quite some time, however there really aren't any significant reasons why I wouldn't share. It hasn't impacted my life dramatically, and if I'm lucky, it never will. I also don't want to be a poster child, nor do I require or want any special treatment simply because I have MS. The thing is, I know more and more people who are impacted significantly by this disease and I feel compelled to help the cause. So for one purpose only, I am outing myself. Here's the brief story. Two years ago my tongue went numb, my arm went numb and I though I slept funny or had a mini stroke. I brushed it off as sleeping funny day after day, after day. Then my eye started twitching, among other symptoms. I decided I was simply crazy... After a while all of these symptoms became so infuriating so I went to the doctor. While at the doctor, he chalked it up to stress, but after a closer
13 comments
Read more

All in a Day's Work

I don't even know how to begin this post... Several months ago, my sister had this bright idea to do her first half iron distance triathlon. I have always wanted to do one so I told her if she did it I would do it too. Next thing I know I was clicking register now on the registration page of the Highcliff Triathlon in Wisconsin. You can read about some of the reactions I received when I announced to various friends that I was going to do this race here . Over the months my friends have taken on the challenge of being supportive and cheering me on along the way. This was no easy feat as I was on the training roller coaster. As the day approached, I thought about all of the possible things that could go wrong and right. I had visions of myself standing on the side of the bike course with a flat tire, me holding on to a lifeguard boat, dreams about wearing clown shoes for the run, and on and on... I also day dreamed about the finish line, what it might look like, who would be the
16 comments
Read more

Jumping the Gun!

This is a 'total' bonus post for the week. I highly recommend reading my previous post, to better understand where I am coming from. You can check it out here .  I am not going to go into details but my name and grandma have been used in a sentence TWICE the past two days. Seriously? Do I look or act that old??? I must... Perhaps it is all the pie making! I am a woman of my word (for the most part, we all falter from time to time) and I mentioned in my last post that there was a chance I was jumping the gun with my dramatic flare related to being sidelined! Well, sidelined I am, but maybe for less time than I initially anticipated. The doctor will tell me my plan in three weeks. The overarching goal? The Chicago Marathon!  While running the Columbus Marathon, last year, I was blessed with amazing spectators and also running companions during the race. One of my companions was my sister. Somewhere near mile 25 she took a picture of me STILL smiling. It isn't ofte
8 comments
Read more