Confessions of a Struggling Runner 💕

I want to run. To do what I always do, have always done, for the last ten years of my life. Escape, flee into the shadows, run happy, run free. 

But this time, I’m tired of struggling with running because I must.💜 

I want to run for me, for the love of the run.

Confession, I don’t think the marathon distance is for me anymore, or at least now. And I’m not even upset about it.

I loved E V E R Y T H I N G about my training. I found my true strength during that training cycle, which felt awesome. But this time, this time is so different, and at the end of my list of reasons why is a simple, “I’m just not into it.”

Now let’s not confuse that with I don’t love running anymore, because I do. I love the speed workouts and random “I feel like running” runs.💙 I just don’t love the long runs. Why? My mind wants to go, but my body not so much, and it seems like God is telling me that it’s just not my thing or my time…

Among the crazy list of reasons why I’m not meant to be a marathon runner at this time is my heart💓. Running after any injury is ridiculously hard. It’s been so frustrating. When it comes to long runs, I struggle. It isn’t getting easier. For some reason, it seems that in every long run of this training cycle, something goes wrong, or something happens that causes me to get in my head, and then I can’t get out. Yesterday, about three-plus km into my run, I got fed up with my Garmin. It was telling me my pace was 12 minutes, it didn’t matter if I sprinted or stopped, it stayed on 12. And it was messing with me mentally. 😵

I don’t even know if I was actually three-plus km into my run. I wanted to quit. I was annoyed with myself. My stubbornness didn’t want to stop my watch and start it again because then I would lose the total km of the run. I was getting so frustrated with the stop-and-go. It’s so darn hard.

I’m not giving up on marathons or maybe even ultras. And I will finish my next 21.1km. I’m just going to take it day by day, and get back to running because I want to, not because I have to. 

It’s time to change gears up for a little and redirect my focus!