What I Think About When I Think About Writing (While Running)

Guilt.

That's what I imagine that they're thinking as I make a my way towards them in full speed in the dark. It's 7 p.m. on a weekday, the mild December weather makes the sidewalks just a tad busier than those snowblown days that are coming.

On my arm is a new light strip that makes my left appendage glow in the dark, a rare source of light against my black tights, top and toque. That armband and my Garmin's glowing counter, illuminate me, gives them ample warning that I'm coming.

When 'evenings' start at 5 p.m., I struggle to convince myself that it's still early enough to go for a run. This is something I'll fight right up until the first snow lightens the sky with a tint of blue. But we haven't had much in the way of snow.

So I'm tending to avoid the trails for the city streets. There, at least, I can have some company, even if it's dodging past pedestrians or making occasional eye contact with a 'walker' who's on their way home from work, or a party, or a restaurant, or just on their way to the next engagement.

I see guilt sometimes in those eyes. The quick glance (then away) say things like 'I should be exercising, but I'm not' or 'Maybe, I need to get a run in too.'

It's been a month since I last posted here. If running some times take over my life, then I'd say that this month, life took precedent over running. A family emergency (things are okay now), work and more work put running on a little back burner.

A runner's guilt looks pretty petty compared with other types of trips. I look at the weeks where I took two days off in a row; in my mind's eye, I might as well have skipped an entire week.

I just finished a 32 mile week, running all seven days. Most of them were done in the dark, with light band on, sometimes pounding out 10K when I really had no energy for it. Every time, like the countless times I began a run under duress, I felt more alive and better for it by the end.

I looked at my blog yesterday, realizing it'd be a full month since I last posted. I've often taken blogging hiatuses in the past six years. Fear not, I have much to say, just when I have to choose between running and writing about running, my feet know to do the talking. Until about after a month, no guilt about that.