To run or not to run… is not really the question. How’s that for hacking Shakespeare? I guess it’s kind of a cliche, but here is something else that has become something of a cliche (I don’t know how to add an accent, so my computer is underlining it. How embarrassing) at least in the context of this blog: I am dithering.

The subject of my dithering is the Reindeer Run 5K, part of the Christmas in Little Falls festivities this Saturday. I have participated for several years. It is a very run run: nice people, interesting course (I love Little Falls), and you end up at Ed & Bud’s, where you can get a Tom & Jerry, a traditional Christmas drink. Why, you may well ask, am I dithering?

Well, sad to admit, I have not been running enough. I have been running; I’m not a complete slug. However, it has only been maybe three times a week: Saturday, Sunday and usually Wednesday. And when I have worked Saturday overtime, it has not been Saturday. I am in shape, but only because I maintain that round and puffy is a shape. I am not in 5K shape.

One could argue that this does not matter. People run 5Ks and even longer runs without properly training or training at all. Your body can put up with a one-time great effort. I, personally, can usually count on my stubbornness to keep me going when my body is not actually up to the challenge. It is really a question of how ate-up I will feel afterwards

I do not want to feel ate-up. I want to enjoy all the fun things going on in Little Falls this Saturday! I don’t want to spend the whole run feeling completely horrible. I want to enjoy myself!

These arguments are really very spurious. I will no doubt enjoy the run even if my body does spend the whole time complaining. I feel I am being highly entertaining with my whining. For example, on one run, I passed a couple of ladies pushing strollers.

“There would be room for me in that stroller!” I said. “That kid could shove over!” I got a laugh, or a least a smile.

Additionally, even when I am in the best of shape, I often finish these runs feeling completely ate-up. I like to, as an admired drill sergeant used to say, leave it all on the track. I run faster than I normally go (my Garmin attests to the fact), start my final sprint too early, and run just as hard as I can at the end. it’s more fun that way! And even when it’s not, I just can’t seem to help myself.

I think I must admit that it is my own laziness and depression that are trying to talk me out of signing up for this run. I will feel really bad if I do not participate. Is the dreaded FOMO rearing its ugly head (ooh, there’s a cliche: “rearing its ugly head”) (and it is “its” not “it’s,” I’ve known that since seventh grade and with others knew it as well)? I don’t know if I am succumbing to a recently documented Facebook disease, but I know that if I do not do the Reindeer Run, I will, in fact, Miss Out.