soul searching

Today I did something I've never done before. In the middle of my long run, a negative thought crossed my mind, and I abruptly stopped running, called my husband, and had him come pick me up. I was at mile 14 of a 20 mile long run.

That thought? "This sucks. Why am I doing this to myself? Running is supposed to be my hobby." Now that I'm back at home, warm and cozy, I'm still having very negative feelings about marathon training. The run itself wasn't going that badly. The weather was bad (low 40s, drizzly, and windy), but not that bad for running. I was keeping a decent pace. I know I could have made it all the way. But I didn't want to.

And I still don't want to. Runs up to 10 miles? Awesome! Runs up to 15 miles? Tolerable! Sometimes enjoyable! Anything longer than that? Crap! I don't want to spend 3+ hours of my Saturdays running. After that amount of running, the thrill is gone, and it's all about mental toughness. It's all about pushing the negative thoughts out of my head. I failed at that today.

To be honest, I'm okay that I failed. Running is my hobby. It relaxes me. It makes me feel good about myself. After a long week at work, I don't want a hobby that forces me to devote a weekend morning to more mental toughness. And I don't want to end up resenting running because it can (and does) bring such joy to my life.

This is a hard realization to make, though. I've always been in love with the idea of running marathons. I believe part of that is innate, and part of it is the idea of being able to achieve glory, even if you're not the best. I'm not sure why running a slow marathon seems much more glorious to me than running a fast half, but it does.

Anyway, I've been naive. When I think of running a marathon, I think of a single day, a single race, a single 4.5 hour chunk of time surrounded by cheering fans. Getting to the point where I can run a marathon at a pace I deem acceptable for myself is a whole different beast. It's (theoretically) running 4-6 days a week for 18+ weeks. Alone. It's saying no to drinks with friends because of training that should have been done earlier. It's making the decision on Saturdays to devote time to the race I've committed to, rather than the husband I'm devoted to. It's paranoia about injuries and guilt about missed (or shortened... ahem) runs.

This will be my second marathon, and it's harder this time around. Last time, there was always the joy of reaching a new distance. This time, there's no, "Yay, I ran 18 miles! I've never done that before!" There's only, "Thank God that's over. Why hasn't my pace improved since last year?" Today I contemplated not continuing training, but my husband encouraged me to just recharge and try again next week. Finish what I started. So that's what I'll do, and then I'm not signing up for another one. Not until next spring, at least. :)