© STADION-ACTU
The worst excuses for skipping training
16/07/2025 21:41Who has never experienced a major bout of laziness, the dreaded urge to stay glued to the sofa or the irresistible temptation to skip a difficult session? At times like these, you’ll find any excuse to skip training, even if it’s the worst – and least credible.
✓ There are lots of bad excuses for skipping training. We’ve deliberately avoided the more classic ones: ‘I’ve got a swimming pool’, ‘I’ve got an aqua-pony’, ‘I’ve got a meeting at work that finishes late’, ‘I’ve got a little pain in my calf, it shouldn’t get any worse’. We had to make choices based on the most fallacious pretexts. We’ve made a tight selection. You be the judge!
| ‘I washed yesterday’.
Yes, it’s true that doing sport makes you sweat. The worst is during the summer. You’ve barely had time to run 300 metres and you can already feel the sweat trickling down between your shoulder blades and your lavender-scented T-shirt soaking up a delicate seal scent.
What about your hair? Forget your blow-dry. Forget the pretty cut you spent half an hour perfecting this morning before leaving for work. And forget about your roots, which are as light as a chick’s down. Once you’ve finished running, there’s only one option: get back in the shower for a thorough cleansing, from head to toe.
Yes, running requires impeccable hygiene. Otherwise you risk fungal infections between your toes, the disapproving glances of your colleagues with their sharp noses and the malediction of passengers on public transport (we bet you’ll quickly be alone in the bus!). Yes, you washed yesterday and with all this talk of global warming, resource depletion and drought, it wouldn’t be eco-responsible to get your clothes, body and hair dirty at training. Today, it’s definitely decided, you’ll stay clean.
| ‘My cat has a fever’.
Your cat (or your dog, or your canary, or even your goldfish) is like your child. All it takes is a bit of a wobble and you’re worried sick. As you know that recovery also depends on being in good spirits, you can’t abandon your little darling to his sad fate, alone at home. So you have to stay by his bedside (or rather his cushion, cage or jar) to give him all your psychological support and unconditional love. No, you really can’t go running, that’s for sure. You don’t want your neighbour to report you to the SPCA for mistreatment!
Incidentally, here’s a practical question: where did you measure your cat’s temperature?
| ‘My mother-in-law is coming home for dinner’.
Now that’s the perfect excuse. Mother-in-laws are sacred. And above all, it’s a potential for untold trouble and remarks for eternity if you don’t get home on time or if the roast is undercooked (or overcooked if you went for a run while it was cooking).
On the other hand, when you say every day that your mother-in-law comes to eat at home, we have to admit that we find it a bit hard to believe you.
| ‘It’s hot, it’s very dangerous to exert yourself’.
It’s true, they even said so on TV! When it’s hot, your heart gets tired, you sweat, your body temperature rises, and you risk dehydration, heatstroke, sunstroke and sunburn. It’s VERY dangerous to do sport when it’s hot.
In fact, do normal people go running when it’s 35 degrees? No, everyone stays cool, drinks beers on the terrace or lies on the grass in the shade. What, the best runners in the world come from countries where it’s super hot? Well, yes, they’re adapted, but you’re not. They’ve probably got a built-in thermal regulation system, a water storage lump on their back and blocked sweat glands. You don’t have all that, so when it’s hot, you sweat. That’s all.
| ‘It’s cold, it’s super dangerous too.’
They said that on TV too. When the air is cold, your bronchial tubes hurt. When there’s snow, you can fall and break a femoral neck, a leg, an ankle or even an arm. Some people even say that icy air can give you asthma.
Yeah, well, what you don’t understand is that you can also equip yourself to cope with sub-zero temperatures. By the way, haven’t you heard of Mathieu Blanchard, who covered 608 km in the Arctic last winter? Funny, he didn’t end up with a plaster cast, frozen lungs and a stock of Ventolin. Come on, hurry home and glue yourself to the radiator: you don’t want to get frostbite!
| ‘It’s raining, I’ve got new shoes, I don’t want to get them dirty.’
The ultimate. The ultimate excuse to blow off that threshold session you’ve been dreading. The one that puts you on the floor at the end and makes the midday burger and chips – and even the 10 o’clock coffee – rise to the brim of your lips. You dread that bloody split session so much that you’ll invent anything to get out of it. Even that, even the worst excuse: ‘I don’t want to get my new shoes dirty’.
It has to be said that your pumps cost you an arm and a leg. You’ve chosen the latest model with a carbon plate, the same one that always beats your marathon PR. The slightest splash is out of the question. Tonight, you’ll go home and put your shoes in the back of your dressing room, clean and dry. Tomorrow’s weather is sure to be fine. And just as well, tomorrow’s a recovery jog!
Bad excuses for skipping training inevitably hide something: lack of motivation? temporary tiredness? unsuitable coaching? or, on the contrary, lack of supervision? When there are so many excuses for skipping sport, it’s probably time to think about the pleasure you get from the activity, the way you do it and the goals you’ve set yourself (or the lack of goals!). Do you often find excuses not to go running?
Marie PATUREL
Journalist
