There are many times when I will be driving to work the morning after a run and I will see joggers out in the sunshine, out in the misty rain, out in the cold, just out running – and I will get jealous. Not insanely jealous, but wistful I suppose. Not jealous about their form or technique, or their speed, or how happy they look. And it isn’t like I’m somehow unhappy with the miles I logged the previous day – I usually am. It’s just a jealousy borne of a wish to be out there with them, to be running again.
That wistfulness doesn’t always happen right before I’m due to go for a run – oh no. That’s when it goes to hide behind the couch. That’s when it forgets where your set of keys are – the special set of keys, the ones you always run with, the ones that are now a totemistic thing that you can’t run without. That’s when you remember that you didn’t do X or Y. That’s never when I’m jealous of the people running by my house. Nope. I’m jealous of them when I’m in a car and going somewhere and unable to do anything about it.
It seems that the good folks at Adidas have figured that out, have put their finger on the fact that I’m not alone. That there are other people on this planet that wish they, too, were always running. That the feeling of wanting to run is deep in the psyche, and doesn’t mean that you are crazy, or that you aren’t running enough. It’s like latent endorphins wanting to rush out. And Adidas wanted to inspire us, I think, so they tell a beautiful story – imaginative and sweet and full of life and character and that late night/early morning dichotomy that takes place in any major city. So for those of you, like me, that were a little jealous of the runners you saw outside your car windows this morning, this one is for you.
