... With A Little Help From My Friends

I made a critical error this weekend. I missed my long run. Why? Because I couldn't wake up. Or wouldn't wake up. I'm not entirely sure which one it is anymore.

What I am sure of is that something is wrong and it's in my head.

Good nutrition, enough sleep and exercise make people feel happy, energized and craving that next bit of good nutrition, sleep and exercise. It's a cycle. The opposite is also true. Lack of good nutrition, lack of adequate sleep and lack of exercise make people feel blah and therefore less motivated to do those things that are good for them. Then sometimes, people feel blah because they're not well.

Anyway, my friend Amber posted this to my Facebook page today. It describes two parallel universes - one where the writer gets up to run and the other where he doesn't. I was the one who didn't run and I got a little teary eyed reading it because I felt I truly missed out on the great feeling he described in his "real" universe while I slumbered away in my "parallel" universe. Which reinforced the knowledge that I WANT to run. Something is holding me back.

Is it because I know how much time it's going to take from here on out? I mean, my half marathon PR (13.1 miles) is 2 hours and 26 minutes. Now that we're at high-mileage long runs, every long run is going to take me between 3 and 5 hours.

Is it because I know now is the time I have to give up a large portion of my social life to be sure I get to sleep in enough time to wake up every Saturday at 5 a.m., grab a Honey Stinger Waffle and run farther than an Army road march?

Is it because now is the time for big sacrifices?

It's all of that. And I've been trying to do it mostly alone because for the past month, my schedule hasn't permitted social running. I said last week that I would come back to training with a renewed sense of commitment. Well, getting there forced me to admit I might be able to train for a winter half marathon by myself, but a marathon is a journey that shouldn't be embarked upon alone. And it's a lot more emotional than I expected.

Thanks to some great friends, there is hope on the horizon.

When I was working for Suburban Life Media, we had a running group called Lede, Folo or Get Outta the Way! (Lede and Folo are jargony journalism terms, for those of you who might be saying "um, that's spelled wrong." It's not.) We had two runs together before we could no longer run as a group. I don't know exactly what we were thinking assuming a team of five journalists could ALL be out of the office at the same time. The goal was admirable nonetheless.

Well, two of those ladies started running again weekly so whenever practical, I'm joining them. They keep me in check for my mid-week run, which is the second longest run. Even when I got stuck in traffic, Sarah Small found a way to get me to the Prairie Path instead of giving up in a fit of road rage.

And yesterday, knowing I had to do something about my long runs, I reached out to my friend Jeff. He is awesome and super motivating. He's also extremely generous because starting Saturday, I will be hitching rides to long run training with him. Think I can hit snooze with him waiting in front of my house? Nope. I'm pretty sure he'd resort to throwing rocks.

So, thank you Amber Krosel, Sarah Small and Jeff Volin. Here is a tribute to you.