By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

A few days ago, I received a phone call from one of my athletes. She’s training for her second marathon, which is fast approaching. My concerns exploded right away, as the first words out of her mouth were: “I have a problem!”. Possibilities such as injury, illness, unexplained pains, job loss, etc., started rushing through my mind. In this blog post, we\’ll explore the art of balancing running and life, especially when facing unexpected life dilemmas.

“What’s happening?”, I asked as I tried to contain my uneasiness so I could keep her calm.

“My husband bought tickets to a comedy show on Friday night, and I won’t be able to do my Saturday long run?”. She explained.

Multiple aspects of your life must be juggled around so your running doesn’t become the ruler of your schedule (Photo Michael Judkins, Pexels)

As the color returned to my face, I told her with the best sarcastic tone I could muster: “What an inconsiderate man! Wanting to go out on a Friday night, with his wife, to have fun? That is awful. If you could only move that long run to Sunday.”

Then I explained that as important as her marathon is, and as much as she is invested in her running, keeping a balanced life between family, work, and running is essential. This was not the night before her marathon, and it doesn’t happen every Friday night. If she doesn’t allow the necessary flexibility to move some workouts around, then her husband, her kids, and eventually her, will resent her running. That would be disastrous for all the parties involved.

“Thank you for the perspective”, she said. And hung up two seconds later”.

I guarantee this incident is not an isolated one. I bet every single reader of this blog post has a personal version of this story. I certainly do. More than one. At one time or another, we had to confront this reality. “I want to train. But my—insert relationship here—wants to—insert activity here— What should I do?”

Most likely you are not qualifying for the Olympics, lining up side-by-side with Eliud Kipchoge at the Berlin Marathon start, or even considered the favorite to win your local 5K. So, moving things around in your training schedule, or God forbid, skipping a workout, are feasible arrangements to fit in running around your life.

What to do if you score World Series tickets for the night before your marathon?

In my experience, both personally and as a coach, the newer you are in the sport, the tougher it becomes to keep running in perspective. As you get started on your journey, the improvement curve is so steep that you want to keep the progress for as long as possible. You may not understand the benefits of a day off, or that not one particular session is going to make or break your race or your running career. This is the time when you must check in with your coach or your more experienced running buddies to help you put it into perspective.

Just like the runner at the start of this post, you may be taken aback by tickets to an event at an inconvenient time. It happens. Hopefully, you shared your goal race with your significant other and he/she will time well the invitations. But it could also happen that you get your hands on tickets to something like the World Series when your team is playing but is happening the night before your New York City Marathon. Then it is time to choose between a once-in-a-lifetime event and what you’ve trained for but may certainly do again, later.

My son got married on a Friday night in November. That’s high training season for local racing where I live. Asking my son to get married another day because I run long on Saturdays was not right. Missing his wedding was out of the question. So, what do you do? You attend your son’s wedding, you have fun and you forget about running on behalf of a momentous occasion in the life of an important person in your life. That’s what you do.

Sure, sacrifices must be made. But it is never about having to choose between your running and your spouse, your significant other, your kids, your family, friends, or work. It is about understanding that in life, there are more important things than a rack full of medals.

Have you ever had a dilemma between running and life? Please share your experience in the comment box, below.