I’ve worried about time quite a lot. In relation to running, I often worried about having enough time to run. In the process of applying for new jobs I’ve considered how the positions which I am applying for may impact the time I have to train.
The thing is, I realised it doesn’t matter. Time has got very little to do with my running.
In my current position, which I have now handed my notice in for, the work comes and goes in waves. Sometimes the waves are heavy, sometimes the waves are light. You would think – I would think – that in those lighter periods I could increase my training. Theoretically that is true. What that suggests however is that in the heavier periods I necessarily decrease my training. That is not true. In heavier times of work, I have done some of my highest volume training.
My reasoning behind this is that there can be no distractions. When the work diary is full, I am forced to plan and execute my running with a degree of precision that is otherwise lacking when the work diary is filled with as much blank space as it is with ink. If I have to be at work by 9, I need to leave the house not much later than 8. If I finish at 17:30 I won’t be home until 18:30. So, when do I run? It’s October, so it will be dark early morning, and early evening. The treadmill is likely to be occupied later on, and I’m likely to be hungry and tired and more susceptible to not-running.
I run in the morning then.
I get up just before 6, and try to get running at 6:30. Finish by 7:30 to shower, eat, get out the door. And then there is the management of two, or maybe even just one day off from work. Those days become precious, targeted training days for speed work, or a long run, that I know I won’t skip because I’ve been thinking about them all week as I dragged my arse out of bed at 5:30.
Of course, during those heavy times I dream of the lighter ones. I imagine what it would be like to sleep in, get up, run when I want, how I want, for as long as I want.
And then reality hits and in those times I find myself lingering.
I find myself being more indecisive, lacking precision, decision, execution. I don’t have more time to train in those periods, I have more time to not train. I suppose I wish I was a free wheeling lightly floating running spirit who doesn’t need structure and routine in my life but I’m not. Give me all the time in the world and I’ll give you exactly what I could give you within an hour or two, scraped from the beginning or end of a long, hard day.
All of this is to say that I have a new job, with a new commute, and that I’m not worried.
There’s always time to run.
run into words 