There are days when you really want to run; then there are days like today

I swapped my weekend long run from Saturday to Sunday because I wanted to give a tweak in my calf time to finish healing up before I pounded on it for 16 miles.  Good plan, except Saturday afternoon just before we left for Mass, I got a call from a good friend who was passing through the state on business and planning to fly out of Manchester Sunday morning. So we invited him for dinner, wine, conversation and put him up on the futon in study.  I got up early with the kids and was dealing with still-achy legs and a bit of sleep deficit when I hit the road.  On the plus side, we'd had pasta with our wine at dinner, and so at least I had some carbs in me.  The weather was grim.  Chilly, gray and blustery, with big gusts of driving wind buffeting stretches of the run, especially during the Merrimack bridge crossings.  Somehow I lost sense of time and season.  I wasn't thinking about it consciously, but somewhere in the back of my head I'd concluded it was late afternoon on a bleak midwinter day.  And that I was about 85 years old.  And doing pennance for something really awful.  Then at mile 14 I ran past our church and saw the 11:30 Mass hadn't even let out yet, and we're just halfway through November.  Snap back from delusional Wolfmother fugue state into the current time stream.  Finished the 16 a little stronger than I'd expected.  Kris has a long run today, too, and for her it will be a first shot at a new distance.  Those are always tough runs anyway, scary but exhilarating.  And it will be especially so on a day like today.  As she was leaving, I said: "It the runs you do on the days that you don't feel like running that really make you stronger."  Do I really believe that?  I guess so; at least enough to get me out the door this morning.  Besides, the sun just came out, and somewhere out on the road, she's getting a nice reward.  She's got a good post on her blog, btw: her top 10 reasons for running.