I had a grueling 20 mile run a few weeks ago. I hit the wall early, but suffered through it – literally hating every step of the way, from the mid-point on. Not fun.
Not fun at all. I’m a rabbit after all, not a turtle.
Why am doing these long runs? Why am I chasing this Ultra?
I don’t enjoy the training. I’m not particularly good at. What am I doing?
So amid all these questions and some soul searching, I stepped back from the Ultra training – hiked a few days for recovery – then blasted off some shorter, faster runs … had fun again.
Did the kind of running I like. That I’m good at. The kind of running I could be great at.
It was a nice break. Physically and mentally.
There are two take-aways I have from these last few weeks:
1) If you’re just trying to get or stay fit – do the things you love. Have fun. Enjoy it. That’ll help you stay consistent and on the right path – and that right there is the secret sauce to everything.
2) I know why I signed up for this Ultra. I wanted to stretch myself. Challenge myself. Do something different, hard, memorable. So if you want to do more than just maintain your fitness – if you want to set a new/different goal and find out about yourself – you’re gonna have to jump off the fun wagon and get to work.
You’re going to have to suffer.
So suffer. Get through it. Do it.
Then you can get back to the fun stuff.
