So I’m sitting on the sofa set in the living room now, having a cup of cold chocolate milk (studies say it provides the right mix of proteins and carbohydrates for recovery) with Switchfoot’s Hello Hurricane playing on my laptop. This, after a hot-cold bath, to wind down following my one-and-a-half hour run for the day.

The day didn’t begin all that well initially. 

I had woken up to a text message by my good friend and one of my regular running partners saying: “Oh no I’m either becoming very lazy or tired. Didn’t run this morning. Will have to run at 1 plus.”

I looked at it half-consciously with a bitter-sweet feeling. I had also failed to wake up early in the morning for my run. But knowing someone else out there going through that same struggle was somewhat comforting.

The previous night, this same friend had asked if I wanted to meet in the morning to put in our run together. I declined because I wanted to put in my run before the sun came up and I didn’t want to travel somewhere to run at such an early hour and wasn’t expecting him to come to my place to run also.

But I should have known better. Since the summer holidays began, I haven’t been able to wake up any earlier than 9am and, by then, the heat would more likely than not be enough of a deterrent to make me wait till the evening to do my run.

And so, it was the same today. It wasn’t until 4pm and after a bout of rain in the early afternoon that I finally got myself out the door. Even then, the dark clouds in the sky were threatening to unload themselves again anytime and disrupt my run.

Not that I don’t like being caught in the rain. In fact, I love being in the rain as long as it’s not too heavy because, then, it gets too hard to breathe and becomes much like trying to breathe in a swimming pool.

Anyway, thankfully, the weather held out with just overcast skies providing good cover against the sun’s heat. It was just wonderful weather to be out running in because I found myself just focusing on the run itself and my form and not finding my body working doubly hard (against the sun) to keep my body from overheating.

This was a run that once again made me feel like I can keep running forever and not feel tired. I have felt this way before on runs but, lately, as I am in the midst of finding my form, it has been a little difficult. Runs like these, even with what seemed like a storm brewing over me, make me realise that my love (for running, for life, for family, for friends, etc) cannot be silenced just as Jon Foreman of Switchfoot sings.

As a quotation (by an unknown author) goes: “There’s really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”