I’ve had a great summer so far. It has been filled with usual summer playbook items: sleeping late, lounging at the beach, ice cream, margaritas. It had calmed and renewed me. But I’m beginning to feel like a very tan, and portly, slug.

For a variety of reasons I took a hiatus from running for the summer. Foot problems, mental exhaustion, new medication, bad habits. During the last school year I trained and ran 5 half-marathons. Yes, five. By my friends’ standards, that’s pretty typical. By normal person standards, I’m fairly insane. But really, if you have to set the alarm to get up at 6 a.m., it’s really not all that different to set it for 5 a.m. Believe it or not, my best days at work were the days that I got up at o’-dark-thirty and ran a quick (ok, I don’t do anything quick, I run far, not fast.) 6-miles before getting to work at 7:30 a.m. [Yes, you read that right, getting to work at 7:30.] Luckily Dear Hubby is a big help in the a.m. But towards the end of the school year, I was dragging. I just gave up. On my last run, I could barely make it to the first corner without walking, wheezing, and crying. So I stopped.

But after four weeks of not thinking about running, not even attempting to run, unless it was with the Hash House Harriers, and even then just sort of floating between runners and walkers, I went for a run last night. It was glorious. Slow, but glorious. I created a playlist with entirely new songs — none of my usual running anthems – all of seeming so stale to me now. Let’s just say – I owe part of this run to Robin Thicke.

It’s funny how just one good run can change your entire attitude.