I stopped running about a month or two ago.

Just stopped. Cold Turkey.

It was something about it getting cold, or having a cold, or having other obligations…

Maybe it was something about getting ready to have another baby…I don’t have a specific excuse.

I have a lot of vague generalities that I can point to as being the reason I quit running.

I have a lot of ground to cover when I compromise…a lot of excuses seem to be a better blanket than just one reason.

I stopped running and that was that…no turning back.

For right now, I just don’t do it.

It’s funny how much easier it was to steel myself to not doing something that can be kind of hard.

It was a lot easier to come up with the resolve I needed to not run than it was to start getting out every morning and covering some miles.

That’s really what most of life is all about.

Unless it’s a habit that you struggle to quit, like smoking or drinking too much, it’s usually easier to “not do” than it is to “do”.

I can “not do it” with the best of them.

“Manana” is my best excuse.  It’s not confrontational.  It doesn’t raise my hackles one bit.  It’s not a defeat…it’s just a postponement.

I can do manana…even if I have to wait a day or two to get started.

I think that children are a pretty good wakeup call, though.

When you have a child, I think that it makes you aware of time passing…even though sometimes you’re too busy to pay attention to what’s going on while the time is moving by.

You know that you better not put too much off for later.

Later only lasts a short while.  Our “later” is a finite thing.  That’s something that hits you when you have a baby…and you still have a lot of work to do.

You better get a move on…prioritize and act on it.

It makes me tired just thinking about action…but just “thinking about action” doesn’t put the bacon in the pan, much less bring it home.

I stopped running because I had a hacking cough and it got really cold outside.

That was a pretty commonsensical reason to not push the envelope physically for a couple of days.

It’s good to take it easy when you’re sick.

The trouble is, a few days turns into a week, then a month…and before you know it, you have a lifetime of new habit laying behind you like a field of dead corn waving in dry winter air.

And you don’t even remember what it felt like to put one foot down in front of the other…over and over and over…each footfall reminding you that “I can, I can, I can, I can”.

It’s easier to back away from something that seems hard at the time than it is to keep going.

It’s surprising, though, how easy a “hard habit” gets as time goes by.  What was hard to begin with becomes easy through time and repetition.

I may get back to running sometime soon.  I may not.

Most of the time, I don’t really know what I’m going to do.

For now, I guess the occasional lack of direction is as good an excuse as any.