stretching, or not

I used to be all into stretching. I’d do a little bit of light stretching before a run and then a long and thorough session afterwards, lasting as much as 20 minutes. Recently, though, I haven’t been stretching much at all beyond a quick toe touch and a low squat when I get home. It’s made things pretty easy to skip that step and just get on with the day. And I haven’t noticed any major changes – only a slight reduction in flexibility when I stretch. I was planning to do a stretch after yesterday’s run, but I ended up going about twice as far as I planned, so I skipped it. I generally dislike stretching after longer than normal runs. It seems that there’s a greater chance of over-stretching already over-fatigued muscles. Today, I kept to the seven-mile bridge run plan and stretched afterwards. This was the first time I’d stretched in at least a month, I think. It felt fine, and nice, but I’m not as into it anymore. It seems like a good idea to stretch once in a while just to keep things in check – maybe once a week or once a month is fine.