Running Lessons: Accepting things you cannot change

Rissers back beach the day before the rain - a good place for "figuring it out"

I woke up this morning tired from another restless night's sleep and feeling like I might be coming down with a cold. Stumbling to the kitchen to feed Her Majesty and make coffee, I looked outside and saw it was a grey, damp, blustery day. A few minutes later, the skies opened and the view across the yard was obscured by thick sheets of driving rain. It was then that I knew "running long" was going to mean getting very wet and cold today. To make matters worse, I'd forgotten to check the forecast so didn't have the right gear for running in such miserable conditions.

Of course, the "type A" runner in me thought I should just suck it up and run my planned 26kms anyway. Fortunately, her more common sensical alter-ego kicked in before I made it out the door so instead I waited to see if the weather would improve.  It didn't, so I finally loaded up the car and headed for the city, figuring I might be able to run here with the right gear.

Alas, weather conditions only worsened as the afternoon wore on. Driving into the city, the wind and rain were so strong I could barely keep the car on the road. It was then that I finally accepted I wouldn't be doing a long run today after all.

Skipping a long run doesn't sit well with me - but there are days when you just have to accept that things aren't going to work out the way you want them to, and today was one of those. The combination of low temperatures, pounding rain and high winds created the perfect conditions for hypothermia so it would have been foolhardy to go running by myself on empty trails through the woods - particularly given that I was feeling under the weather and didn't have the right gear.

Of course, missing my run today means I'll have to find a way to squeeze in a long-ish one later in the week, but that's okay. The important thing is to be flexible enough to accept that there are some things I cannot change and switch to Plan B as soon as possible - which isn't a bad approach to life in general, as it happens.