What Am I Missing?

The choices we make affect us and everyone around us

Me on my birthday, snoozing in the shade of palm trees.

In Stoic Running, I focus a lot on getting out there, being there for yourself, and making time for the run. What I don’t focus on is the other side: what’s going on while we’re hitting the pavement or the trails? What do we sleep through so that we can get up in the morning, or excuse ourselves from so we can go out at night? 

These are important questions. After all: this is your life. You have a limited number of mornings to spend in bed and evenings to spend with your friends. As I watched the Olympics the past few weeks, I saw a lot people who have given up a lot of things: sleep, delicious food, travel, studies, and most of all, time. In their calculation, the time they devoted to training was worth the moment they had arrived at: to compete in the Olympics. 

I can’t say that I would make any other choice, given it myself. As a teenage athlete, I was aware that I gave up a lot. Dates, parties, sleep, and trips all gave way to the focus of my training. I even had a boyfriend who was a runner and could run with me, so I was ahead a lot of girls, but I still made daily choices that set me apart from them. If trail running had been an Olympic sport (how is this still not a sport?? HOW?), I might have tried to go the distance. 

But between my preferred version of running not being an Olympic sport and a bunch of other factors, I chose to step back. I wanted to see what else life had to offer if I didn’t have to focus so hard on running. What I didn’t realize then is that stepping back from competition is one thing, but if you don’t step back from training all together, you still make those daily choices. 

Through the years, choosing to run every day has bent the arc of my life in good ways and bad. I’ve invested in myself, but I’ve missed hang outs that could have turned into bands or business; I’ve disappointed friends and lovers; I’ve distanced myself from colleagues and connections of all types, just so I could be all alone, on a road, skipping through miles that no one ever sees. 

I don’t regret it. But I’m also proud to say that I’ve gotten smarter about my choices. I recently had a birthday, and I was planning to run that night. Instead, a friend invited us all over, and to my surprise, threw together a dinner, complete with a homemade peach tart. 

The view from my sofa.

It dawned on me at about 5:45 that I wouldn’t be running that night, because I wanted a glass of orange wine in the long, cooling evening and to have two slices of tart as the night closed in. It was worth it to miss that run, because it was worth it to have my friend, and her family, and my family all around me, in a tiny celebration. I could make up the run later that week, and I did, and it was fine. 

I felt weird not running, and I was anxious that I wouldn’t make it up for some reason. But I can have more faith in myself now than I used to. The thing about having a long-term practice is that you get better and better at the balance of that practice. If it consumes you, you’re no longer benefiting; you’re no longer Stoic. You’re more like an obsessive or a dependent. So sometimes making the other choice is so much stronger than making your normal one. 

Most people need to be cheered on to make the choice to go run, but others of us struggle with balance the other way. Others of us sometimes need reminding that the time we have is the time we have, so most days, go be the runner you are and that you can be. But other days, every once in a while, choose another you. Choose the you that doesn’t run, and take a peek into what you’re missing. 

All that being said, the choice is yours and the vast majority of days I’ll continue to say: go run.