I love to run.

It is relaxing, it clears my mind, great ideas pop to live and problems are solved. All during a 40 minute run. I’ve done this for years and years and it is part of me.

But suddenly I got a pain in my calf and sometime my achilles tendon. It started little, but it grows into a serious pain and finally became a cramp. Really painful, serious enough to stop running and walk home carefully.

It recovers in a day or two, but every time when I run it happens again. I even got cramps at night!

I tried all kinds of things to get rid of it, but none of it worked. My shoes were good, good cushioning good support, so it had to be something else.

Then, believe it or not, during running I realized that because I got a new job, spending more time in an office, with a coffee machine, I drank much more coffee then before. By much more, I mean 10 cups a day, easy.

I love to drink coffee, it is one of my favorite drinks, but I realize that, to convert caffeine into something more „neutral”, it uses water…. A lack of water in your body can cause cramp.

I had to quit drinking too much coffee. I had to change but changing a habit is changing routines and that is hard. Especially for someone like me, I love the taste of coffee, the darker roasted the better, the intensity, it’s my fuel for work and creativity!

But I did quit.

I changed to 4 to 6 cups espresso instead of drinking ordinary coffee. The real thing of freshly ground, high quality coffee beans, made by a noisy espresso machine, making great tasting espressos. I enjoy every one of them and drink a lot of herbal tea and water.

And guess what?
The cramps stopped.
It took a few days and a few careful runs, but slowly the cramp dissolved and now I can run without pain, feeling great every time I do!

But there’s more.
Instead of missing my ‘a-lot-of-coffee-drinking-routine’, I gained something additional. I more consciously enjoy the 4-6 cups of great tasting espresso then un-consciously drinking 12 big cups of ordinary coffee.

The morale?

Sometimes it is necessary to give up things,
but realize,
by doing it consciously,
before, during and after,
with a clear objective,
you get a lot more good things in return.

And remember: The best tasting coffee is in the bean.

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Espresso is part of the “Little Voices” series. Little voices are like the angels on the shoulders you see in cartoons, but not just good or bad. There are much more Little Voices, like the fearful one, the daring one, the sensitive one, the one who doesn’t like change and so on, but all of them influence behavior in one way or the other.