I’m not familiar with this feeling: being stuck inside, not able to run.
I haven’t missed any significant time from running because of sickness or injury for more than four years.
My body is making up for lost time.
One day of running in the past 11 days means I’m going stir crazy.
To run is to live. So not running means what?
So I try to relax and concentrate on what I can control. I set out my fall plan again and again, attempting to design the perfect racing buildup.
I tell myself that I don’t want to run in the heat anyway, and the people out there are only suffering.
But my legs want to spring back to life.
I miss the soreness resulting from a hard workout and everything else that lets me know that I earned my sleep at night.
Normally I would watch the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and immediately go out for an inspired run.
Instead, I fixed myself another bowl of chicken noodle soup.
Frustration is the easy answer, and that’s exactly what I feel often. Frustration over not running is definitely not the solution, however.
In fact, my body needs to relax and heal. All of this inflammation that’s clogging my airway will eventually go away. And anger won’t make it happen quicker.
Which brings me all the way back around: what can I do while I sit around not able to run?
I can start or rewatch a TV series on Netflix or HBO Go. I can type away on this blog, eating up precious training time with my complaints. I can read running books in hopes they will inspire healing and not discourage me because I still can’t hit the roads.
I can think about training techniques and do some minimal core work (I have done some but gotten any real work done).
For now, however, I’m just making more soup.