Why I Love To Run

I woke up cranky this morning. Yesterday had been a great day. I'd started with my (now) monthly massage, had a nice coffee with my sister, finished up the week's work and finished early enough to go read Runner's World for an hour before dinner (gotta love Friday nights. Left-overs night = no cooking) and rounding out the night watching my football team play and get soundly beaten. (And no that didn't make me cranky)

My crankiness started after I went to sleep. I'd been asleep for only an hour when Luke, playing computer games in his room, let out a loud yell (must have been an exciting game). In my sleep-addled state I thought that someone was calling me so I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall. No emergency but I noticed that Josh was still out.

Now Josh has been really sick this week, been off work for four days, been to the doctor's twice and is on antibiotics. He'd gone out to dinner with friends at 7pm but it was well after 11pm. I went back to bed and stewed over his lack of common sense, his irresponsibility and the fact that he was undoubtedly going to put himself into hospital with pneumonia and probably lose his job. (When it's night and I'm getting worked up I tend to make giant leaps of doom and gloom) I wasn't sleeping and getting angrier and angrier when I decided to call him. Got out of bed to find that he'd just arrived home (after midnight) and was getting changed to go out again. Boy did I let him have it! I may or may not have said that if he didn't get his s@#t together he could leave home because what I couldn't see I wouldn't worry about.

Then I went back to bed.

And couldn't sleep

For ages ...

But I must have drifted off because at 2:10am I was rudely awoken by one of the hens falling off her perch and cackling. Iven dealt with her while I tried to get back to sleep.

At 2:30 there was a little tap on our door. Then another. And then a whine. Poor Nelson needed to go out to the toilet and was trying to let us know. Up I got (Iven had fallen straight back to sleep after the chook incident) and let him out and went back to bed.

Lying there ONCE AGAIN trying to get to sleep, I realized I needed to go to the toilet. Great! Back up again!! It was after 3am now and I only had till 4:55 till the alarm was set to go off. There was a big internal debate over whether I should turn it off and pike on the run but I knew I'd feel like I was being punished even more if I missed out. So I just lay there and let the time tick down.

So that's why I woke up cranky but I feel great now. As soon as we started running I felt this peace filter through and calm my mood. It was a magnificent, crisp, clear morning. We got to see the sun rise over the river, I got to talk to some lovely people and now all's right with the world. I've even made peace with Josh.

And that's why I love to run. I <3 running.