Last Wednesday, I was on my way to the RR from work when I was suddenly stopped 5-10 minutes away from the store by bumper to bumper traffic. I usually have my trip timed out nicely so that I arrive there a few minutes before the class, but the traffic was really throwing things off course. After 15 minutes of little to no progress, I thought I’d just bail. So, I missed that class.

By this morning, that meant it was 5 days since I last ran. I figured that there would be some consequence to it, but I never imagined that running would be as tough as it was. We ran a 6K path, and I was struggling after the first 10 minutes. My legs felt like lead. I was far behind the others, and really fighting to keep moving. Seeing everyone so far ahead made me feel like crap psychologically. Thing is, the people that attended today were generally the people always in the front of the group. So, right at the beginning I knew that today would be a rough one. The started off really fast, and I tried to keep up, but in the end the pace was just too much for me and I fell behind quickly. The group’s run leader kept an eye on me and came back to ask if I was alright. I told him that I was hurting but I could keep going. I had no choice, I guess.

Yeah, every runner has these days–I just seem to have them really often. I doubt myself continuously when I run.

Why am I so slow?
Why do I bother if I can’t be competitive?
Why am I just so bad at it?

Well, despite that, I keep at it because I really am still quite amazed that I’m even able to do something like 6K. There’s a genuine good feeling that comes out of completing the run. It’s an odd balance of good and bad. Being that that’s true, it’s no wonder that it fits into my life like it does–I seem to be all about various dichotomies.