It is Friday. Every Friday I bike home from work and on my ride I see happy patrons at bars and restaurants enjoying a happy hour drink. This makes me happy. I fantasize about going to a local bar by myself one of these times and just ordering a beer; “I’ll take a Yuengling“. Maybe I’ll talk to someone, maybe the bartender, or maybe I’ll sit in silence to just decompress and enjoy myself after a week of work. I think about this pretty much every Friday.
Since Meghan and I got back from Croatia in July of last year, I have run every single Friday after work. In fact in the ~250 days since then I’ve taken less than 10 days off.
Is this a humblebrag? Of course it is. But it also means that for the last 39 Fridays, I’ve biked home thinking about stopping for a drink, and decided not to. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve drank plenty of Friday’s since then, but there’s something so… Romantic? Enticing? about saying to hell with it and just grabbing a drink at a bar and forgetting about your responsibilities for an hour. A sort of live-in-the-moment seductiveness that I have not quite gotten to enjoy.
The funny thing is that when I wasn’t running so seriously, I almost never did this. I took for granted the idea that I could grab a drink whenever I wanted. It’s only in the last year or so, and for some reason especially the last month or two, that I’ve really noticed this.
Ironically I write all of this on the eve of my biggest marathon workout of the block. My alarm is set for 7am and the long run tomorrow will probably wipe me out from doing anything fun tomorrow night.
On one hand, I’m more excited than I’ve ever been with running because I really think I’m in the best shape of my life. On the other though, I’m really noticing some of the sacrifices that come with that, the Friday-after-work-bar-beer being more a metaphor for my sacrifices in general.
After three months of building and just three weeks until the race, obviously I will continue to be committed to running. But now that I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I know I’m going to enjoy the shit out of some beers after work, and would remind you all not to take whatever your version of that is for granted.
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