Not about running

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The first post to this blog won't be about running. It will be about those „empty“ times when you cannot run. When the circumstances out of your will and control stop your trainings, mess with your plans to stock up well on your fitness before your oncoming A-race and prevent you from your natural daily diversion. That happens when you get ill or injured and have enough self-preservation instinct to shelve your running shoes for some time.

All of us can testify that these times are more than frustrating. That feeling of a sudden void in our runner´s life cannot be got rid of, no matter what fillers you reach for. These times seem to defy your very essence, they are not a part of you the way you approach yourself.

We all live in some sort of a running bubble. Early risings, workday morning runs, weekend long runs. And when the bubble gets a puncture, it sucks. Let's try to approach such moments with your runner's mentality. Do not deplore the situation, embrace it. What happened is not against your life as a runner, it is a natural and undeniable part of it. It is still your run.

I have been down with a flu  for some days. Just two months after I got out of covid (again) and my endurance training seemed to get to that level comfortable for a further build-up. I passed successfully trough the UTMB lottery with the six running stones gained in the last year's Mozart 100 and KAT Endurance Run in Austria and did not spare excitement about my Chamonix dream coming true this summer. I registered with TrainingPeaks to put some organized and measured routine to my training runs. My runner's mentality set to clockwork. But alas, the flu bug doesn't care.      

Lying in the bed now, with my head about to burst and coughing killing my bronchi, I can frustrate myself through the suddden idleness and nerve my brains about a reasonable amount of days to be left out before taking up my runs again. Not a good state of mind, even though quite difficult to step out of. So let's wrestle with it some other way. My deplorable state now is a queer moment on my endurance path, a bit of stray-away on my tricky mountain trail. It is a part of my run.  

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