missed workout

I had a 15 miler planned today that I simply missed/skipped/didn't get around to.  I slept in today because I've been very tired and haven't been getting much sleep and it was raining, etc.  Last night before I decided to do the run after a 2:30 meeting I had this afternoon, but then the meeting went longer than planned, and I hadn't eaten since 10.30 (an odd time to eat, I know -- but I wanted to grab something before heading into the library and by the way I recommend the Subway breakfast menu)...I had to send some emails to follow up on some things from the meeting, then it was 7:30 and dark.  Even grad students have their hectic days, whether for some of us that simply means having to put on pants and see the sun.  Lesson learned: better to run in the morning because the best laid plans go awry. 

It was just one of those days.  Poked at my chapter from mid morning to mid afternoon and increased mankind's store of knowledge by an unimpressive 611 words.  Readers of this blog will note that over the last 48 hours I've written more about Magnum PI and clandestine pooping than about the subject in which a major institution of higher learning is certifying me as an expert. 

Anyway--it takes about two days to start losing fitness so no harm done but then again no fitness gained.  The midweek medium long run is a major part of my marathon training goals, and this season, I haven't been doing them. 

It's a constant worry of mine that running will ultimately diminish the quality of my life, that the opportunity cost of an hour or two on the road will not be worth it when in my senescence I look back on my years as a runner.  I wonder, shouldn't I be spending running time reading Latin poetry or learning programming or figuring out bond valuation? 

A lost running day tells me no.  There's a limit to how much I can do cognitively in a single day.  I can't pay attention all day long to productive work.  After I finished all my work around 7.30 I felt totally restless.  It was too late to go for a run but I didn't have the energy to do some of the other things in my life I've been  meaning to get around to: finish The Bostonians, write the cover letter to send out that Henry James paper, give the paper one more quick revision, read The American, read more Saul Bellow, read an academic journal, read more poetry, watch more French films, figure out how to build websites, etc.  I'm too tired, and too distractable.  So it's OK to run, because I probably overestimate its opportunity cost.