My shoes arrived Friday afternoon. Because the delivery tracking has said they would arrive around 8PM, Friday night, my thought had been that I would wait until Saturday to take them out for a spin.
But they arrived in the afternoon.
Inertia and routine are a funny thing – they don’t like change…they fight change. I stared at my cool, new, Boston Saucony Kinvara 7s. I thought about taking them out for a run, but someone mentioned dinner and inertia and routine had their way…for the moment.
At dinner, I decided perhaps I would go for an early evening run, so I ordered light and skipped my usual beer. I wasn’t going to let inertia and routine have their way with me. They fought back. About half way through dinner, the proprietor of the restaurant came to me an oversized bottle of Japanese beer.
“Mr. Matt! I spilled a little of this when I opened it for a customer, so I can’t give it to them.” There was still at least 90% of the beer still in the bottle. “So, here you go! On the house!”
What was I supposed to say? I poured a glass and took a few sips. I love beer. I really, really love beer and after a long week, those few sips went down nice and easy.
Inertial and Routine rubbed their hands together, smiling…an evening run drifted from my mind…but only for a moment. Half a glass later, I put it down and asked for the bill. My beer loving friends would be horrified, but I was not going to let the Universe win this one.
Upon returning home, I was determined to get myself out for just a short run. I picked up the shoes and headed upstairs, but as I passed the front door, I looked out. It was raining. Inertia and Routine were throwing up one last hurdle.
“How bad do you want it, Luau?”
Ugh! Do I really want to take my brand new shoes out in the rain, I asked myself ridiculously. Seriously, I asked myself that question. Inertia and Routine are insidious. I balked, decided I’d go anyway and balked again.
Finally, I realized that I need to heed the same advice I give to my clients – if not now, then when? The problem with tomorrow is that it rarely, if ever, arrives when it comes to getting things done.
So I gave Inertia and Routine the middle finger, put on my running clothes, found my earbuds, and went out the door. What followed was an uncomfortable 3 miles that was surprisingly even paced (the last 2.5 miles being paced between 4:28 and 4:30 1/2 miles – final time was 27:23). My average heart rate was 147 bpm…way above what it used to be for a run at that pace. After spending this morning with clients, I followed up yesterday’s run with another 3 miler; this one at a little zippier 23:31 (mile 2 even coming in at 7:29), but with an average heart rate of 166.
It’s a start, but I’ve obviously got a ton of work to do if I want to even think about contemplating the idea of running a BQ (3:25) again. What I do know is this: round 1 of my battle against the universe, specifically inertia and routine, goes to me.
The battle continues…
Stay tuned!
~Luau
Run Luau Run 
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