I didn’t feel like running today. Last week’s events, along with reading/watching all about them on Twitter and the news, finally caught up with me.

Yeah, it did.

So you know what I did?

I got to run today!

It wasn’t an especially great run, and I didn’t get in the miles that I had planned on doing, but at the same time, I got to run. Running forces me to focus on something other than the ills of our world at this point.

While I was able to think about the run, it was one of those runs where you feel like you are attempting to run through sludge, even though the roads were clear, the temps were right around freezing (pretty good for January in Maine), and not too much of a breeze.

I didn’t feel like going down Philbrick Hill. I have to come back up it since down-back is a lot of ice and not runnable for me.

During the first mile, I worked on getting loose and seeing how I felt after the January Thaw virtual race. I haven’t run that fast in a while, but nothing hurt or bothered me, which was great news.

Even so, I still felt sluggish and not into running this morning. My time was right around what I thought it would be – slower than usual.

The second mile was a little better. Although I came close to bagging the run as I got close to the end of it. I didn’t feel like being out there, and the mind, while focusing on the running, didn’t have the mental toughness to keep going.

Somehow, I tricked myself into doing another lap on Philbrick. The third mile felt a little better, but looking at the split – a little slower than the second one. I wanted to stop in the worst way, but as I got closer to the end of the third mile, I reminded myself that I was supposed to be doing 5.0 miles today, and if I wanted to hit 30 miles this week, I would have a more challenging time doing it, if I stopped at 3.0 miles today.

I grudgingly kept going.

Although I had made up my mind when I did my turn, it would be the last one. 4.0 miles is better than 3.0, and 1.0 mile is easier to make up than 2.0.

I think that runs like these do develop mental toughness because I am out there even though I have zero ambition or desire to be outside. Yet, I got most of the workout done. Even though today’s run was supposed to be a recovery run, the number of mental gymnastics I had to go through to get in 4.0 miles made for a more challenging than necessary workout.

Some days are like that and build character in a runner.