I’m pretty good about striking a balance between running and the more important rest of my life. On occasion,though, something has to give, and I think the picture below gives a pretty good idea of how it generally shakes out. That’s just fine though, as far as running goes on my priority list, I’m not sure it even cracks the top 5. It’s all about hitting that balance that allows me to run as often as I do (which provides you the good fortune to read this blog!).

The Boulder is a Metaphor for Life; the Road is a Metaphor for Running

This week life reared its beautiful head in a way that has redirected my running schedule. Lucky for me, it’s actually several things cropping up, all in the same week, that fall on cooperative days so that I can easily roll with the punches. Saturday I had someone come to the apartment between 8am and 9am, so I decided to move my 12 miler to Sunday, rather than try to get up early enough to be back by 8am. Normally I wouldn’t think anything of it and keep the following week’s schedule untouched.

gears = running, wrench = life, in case you aren't a visual-type

However, Ev gets back from Florida on Wednesday around 5:15pm. Usually I’d run to work on Wednesday, which leaves me car-less, but I’m picking her up from the airport. Instead of trying to convince the bus driver to make a 20-mile-detour to the airport or shuffling runs around in some rocket science-y way, I’ve decided to just move Saturday to Sunday, Monday to Tuesday, Tuesday to Wednesday, etc. This Mensa-level master plan works out even better this particular week because next Saturday I need to work between 6am and 9am (fail). Now, if you asked me

what time I was planning to run 18 miles next Saturday, I’d tell you 6am to 9am. So again (quite literally), I’m easy like Sunday morning, and will do my long run on Sunday… morning. The main challenge is going to be getting back on track after next week’s Sunday long run. That’s where I can slide around some recovery days to get me on track.

Um, Life = Lemons, Running = Eyes?

Interestingly, the one thought that never crosses my mind (except now, when I think to myself “what am I not thinking about?”) is to just skip a run to get on track. This is the first training plan where I have kept up with every scheduled run. In the past I ran maybe 20% of the recovery runs, typically taking the days off. I have this sense of pride now in my Cal Ripken-like streak*(28 for 28 at the time of writing) and want to keep it up. Anyhow, sometimes life throws a wrench in the proverbial gears and you just gotta go with it.

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p>*forgive me for the baseball reference