I am going for a run for the first time in a week and a half soon after this post hits the internet. Bear with me while I bitch about my injury one last time.

I blame society.

Yes, you, society. You and your same-day delivery options, your one-click downloads and your food-in-a-minute recipes. I’m grumpy and it’s your fault.

Being a runner in the age of instant gratification is really freaking hard. I’m not the most patient person in the world anyway so dealing with something that involves slow continuous progress is hard enough, even if it’s something I enjoy. I put off watching movies with plots I find interesting if they’re over 2 hours long because my brain is no longer trained to wait 3 hours to find out what happens. Yes, it’s that bad.

Being injured and forced to wait for things to go back to normal has been a shitfest. I know, I know – the quickest route isn’t always the best and there are no shortcuts to happiness and all other assorted hippie crap you can think of. I’m over it.

This injury has been testing my patience. My patience is failing. F-, patience. Go home and think of what you’ve done.

I’m a proud member of the Instageneration for whom “now” is the only acceptable answer to any “when can I” question. All this sitting around waiting for aches to go away is not something today’s twentysomethings are equipped to deal with.

I’d felt it already during marathon training – the anxiety that comes with wanting to reach a certain level of fitness but actually having to work for it, no “buy now” or “express shipping” options available. It makes me wonder whether this would all have been easier for past generations, used to having to wait months for letters to arrive and having to hit rewind on their cassette players to listen to the same song again. I can deal with slow progress if it means I’m doing what I enjoy so the slow progress of training is not really a bother. But this? Sitting around doing the responsible thing waiting for the pain to go away? This is a slow ride to shitsville and I want to get off this bus and catch the express one.

I might regret this but today I’m finally going to lace up the running shoes again. Cross your fingers I won’t be typing the next post with a bag of frozen peas on my knee. But for now, patience schmacience.