Maybe

Running without a goal in mind, except a vague remembrance of the health benefits and the feeling that I should continue doing this thing, is not working out that well for me. I'm going in fits and starts and having to pep-talk myself into heading out the door at all. ("Two miles! Two miles are great! Come on, I can totally do two miles if I just get out of bed!")

These shoes aren't doing me any
good without feet in them.

So I've been toying with the idea that maybe it's time to write "The End" on the "Running" chapter of my life, to let it go altogether and focus on any of my 78 other hobbies instead. Maybe this part of brain that's hanging on needs to finally acknowledge what the rest of my body has been telling it--that we're done doing this. Or maybe, because I don't know if that last thing is really true, maybe it's that without my biggest cheerleader beside me, the relevant neurons can't conjure up the motivation to keep moving any longer. It's more work and less fun without him.

Of course, there's also the fairly obvious solution of signing up for a race and seeing what happens. Once upon a time I could go out and run for the sake of running, but it could be that that is the chapter that is really behind me (more than 10 years behind me, in fact), and far from lacking the will to keep going, I've instead been trying to get back into a groove that was filled in long ago. If that's the case, then really my only problem here is a temporary wrong turn. I can fix wrong turns--I do it on an almost-daily basis, what with my keen sense of misdirection and inability to use a digital map.

A previous Turkey Trot shirt,
as outlined on Chadwick's
t-shirt quilt. Maybe my
favourite thing about the
whole blanket.

Which is it going to be? No idea. The thought of never running again fills me with despair, so that's probably not it. But I could easily keep putting off the decision and de facto stop running without ever having made a conscious choice. I want that less than anything--if this is indeed to be a parting of the ways, then I'd like to be present for that decision.

On the other hand, I did get an email this week about early registration being open for the Turkey Trot. An easy, non-threatening, go-as-slow-as-I-want event that barely requires training at all. Is that enough to get the neurons firing?

Maybe today is the day I'll find out.