I don’t get a lot of time to run.
I work part time, have my own craft business, two kids and a husband who works long hours. During the day, I usually spend my time doing paperwork, sewing orders, taking assemblies, going to meetings and general housework. My evenings are spent running youth and kid’s clubs, or ferrying the kids to various out of school activities. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. This is how I chose to live my life. But sometimes I find it hard to fit in a bit of me time and go for a run.
Every Wednesday morning I go to my church for the weekly coffee morning. There’s tea/coffee and toast on offer and I love it. I usually do some kind of prep for Sunday’s junior church lesson or the Toddler Group while chatting to the other people who attend. In order to squeeze a run in I’ve started to run to the coffee morning. It’s about 2 1/2 miles from my house so a nice 5 mile round trip. It’s quite a talking point when I turn up in my running kit too. Conversation turns to the daily 5mile run while in the army on national service, the amount of exercise they used to do and the aches and pains that come with old age. It really does Bridge a generation gap.
This week however I had to attend a meeting before the coffee morning. I couldn’t run to the meeting then run to coffee morning as it would make me late for a meeting with the Elders of my church. I really didn’t want to drive and miss my run as I wasn’t sure where I could fit another one in.
So, Plan B it was. I drove the kids to school (something I loathe doing without good reason), drove to my meeting, making me an hour early, parked up, then ran home (a mile and a half) and ran back down to the meeting. Doing it this way meant I had a bag in my car to change for the meeting and I could still get to coffee morning afterwards in time for my second meeting. A quick wash in the toilet and a change of clothes and no one knew any different.
Except me. It made my day knowing that I had shoehorned a run in when it was looking like I couldn’t. I have to take my miles when I can get them. Plan B meant I could tick all the boxes and fit a run in. Plan B – because life doesn’t always make it easy.