Suck It Up

It’s 5:45 PM.  I’m hydrated, fed and fully dressed.  And staring at the PRC Runs feed waiting for someone to post “due to the anticipated apocalyptic rain, group run has been cancelled for this evening”.  It’s the message that rarely comes.  I get in the car, turn on the arse warmer and make the 75 second trek from my house to Peter Barry Duff.

This is the part of winter running that I hate.  It’s clucking ridiculous, really.  For a person that spends most of the day wearing two bejeezly sweaters with the heat on “cremate” in her office, I warm up freakishly fast when I work out.  The majority of last winter I wore nothing but my infamous blue pullover with the pony-tail accommodating hood and a pair of long pants.  I love running in the cold.  Rain even.  Why do I go through this ritual two evenings a week?  I don’t seem to have this problem on the weekend.  The weekday runs require a lot more effort.  I’ve started keeping groceries at work so I can have my toast with PB&J at 3:30 - it's all the other prep work that sends me over the edge.

If hubby is home, I’ll have to take my running gear with me in the morning so I can change at work and drive to the community centre or PBD.  This becomes a burden when I’ve already used 95% of my decision-making capacity deciding what I’m going to wear for the day four hours before I actually get dressed.  You see, when said spouse is home for two weeks, I get back into my regular routine of going to the gym before work.  Eighteen years later and I’d still rather be hit in the head with a ball of my own knit than pack my gym bag.  And guaranclukinteed I'll forget to bring a change of underwear.  Or a bra.  There is nothing worse than wearing a sweat-soaked racerback bra all day, only to change into another racerback bra after you've been chafed to Bebus.  Take my word for it, fellas.   

If hubby is away, I’ll have to leave work at 4:30, pick up the child at his afterschool program, drop him off at mom’s house (God love 'er) and then drive home to change.  This is the sketchy part of the program.  I could have 1-1/2 hours alone in my house.  One-and-a-half hours.  Alone.  There are gym bags, back packs, garbage bags and laundry baskets everywhere.  The dishwasher is full of clean dishes.  The counter is full of dirty dishes.  Oh, the progress I could make…

Unfortunately, as tempting as it is, I wouldn’t get any satisfaction.  Because anxiety about the state of my house would be replaced by the fear that I’m headed toward a permanent hiatus from running.  And a clean head feels much better than a clean house.

So I choose to run.

And if we’re going to start using weather as an excuse, we’d never get out there.