Sometimes

Sometimes you go to bed early on a Friday night so you can wake up early on Saturday morning to meet up with a new running group and run your first 20 of the season. Sometimes you get up extra early to ensure you have time to eat a banana and peanut butter and drink some water before getting in your car and driving. Sometimes you aren't able to poop before leaving the house and you stop at a Dunkin' Donuts on the way to meet the group and use their bathroom even though you weren't a customer that morning. Sometimes you meet up with a group and start your run but in the back of your mind you realize that even though their pacing at the same pace you would for this distance you are struggling to keep up. And you realize that the pit stop at the DD bathroom didn't quite cover it. And your hamstrings, which are always a little tight, are starting to complain a little more than usual. And as the distance between you and the pack grows you start to panic a little because you didn't bring your phone and you are running in a new place and you don't know your way around. And the complaining from your hamstrings is starting to sound more like yelling. And even after you find a side of the road Porto to use you still can't shake your tight muscles and sore knee. And you eat your chomps and you drink your water and your pace slows to a crawl and your hambos start to really scream at you. And you check in with yourself and know that, though they're screaming they are not tearing, just tight and sore. And you go back in forth in your head about how much distance you should cover and is this an injury or just something that hurts. And you turn around so that your total distance will be just over 16 instead of 18 or 20 that you intended. Sometimes you do everything right the week before and the day before and the morning of and you still have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad run.

Running is an amazing sport and it is as unforgiving as the road we run on. It doesn't matter if you are training for your fourth marathon or your 50th you still have to put in the miles and some of them are going to hurt. For the good or the bad of it, each run is a new day of running. The bad is that you can't bank last year's training sessions or miles, you have to run them again this year. The good is that we can start over after having a terrible run and know the next one will be better. Running keeps you honest and humble.

And sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes, you hit a runner's high.