Those who can, should

I’ve now been running for five months and 90% of the time I love it and, although I rarely bound out of the front door to start a run, I don’t find it difficult to get off the sofa and ‘Just Do It’.

Like most runners I imagine, there is the occasional day when I do find myself trying to find an excuse to not lace up my Brooks and do the miles I have mentally planned for myself.

I now have an easy way of combating that reluctance and, to date, it’s never failed.

I was running four or five weeks ago when I came to an enforced stop. Having to cross a busy road I was faced with a flow of traffic that meant it would have been very dangerous to try and dive between passing cars to keep myself moving.

An elderly gentleman waited alongside me. He was 80 or 90, or somewhere between the two. We exchanged smiles whilst we waited for an opportunity to cross.

That chance came soon enough and, as I re-commenced my run, he called after me: “I’d be doing that if I could!”

He seemed a spritely chap and I don’t doubt that he gets out and about often as he clearly viewed it as an important thing to do.

There will come a time in my life when I can’t go out and run 13 miles. When those days come, I don’t know if I will think back, wistfully, to when I could. Today I can run 13 miles. I can take my mountain bike up over the South Downs. There’s not a lot I can’t do should I really want to.

So, when I’m having one of my “I don’t really want to run today” days, I think back to that briefest of exchanges. I get changed, I get out and I run. Because I can, and others can’t.

Those who can, should.