After finishing the ultra in October, I decided I needed more of a break than usual. Even when I was ready to run more, I wanted it to be unstructured. I was prioritizing ease, and that felt like the right and good thing to do. I’m sure that it was—we all need breaks.
Meanwhile, in other areas of my life, I found myself also seeking ease and comfort. The pandemic presented enough stress and challenge. I said no to things I might have done in the past, purposefully keeping my schedule light. I avoided early meetings so I could sleep without waking to an alarm. Mostly working and being at home led to months on end of sweatpants. Aside from run clothes, if it wasn’t cozy, I wanted no part of it.
I don’t think I’d change much about the decisions I made. I was setting some boundaries and allowing myself space during a really challenging time in the world. This isn’t a post about regrets. It’s about that a-ha, when you realize it is time for a change.
In all my downtime at home, I’d fundamentally changed. Taking a break turned into new mindsets and preferences. I found myself choosing to shorten runs. I had a hard time completing an entire set of strides. Having always been a person who thrived on challenge, I was surprised my old ways weren’t coming back around to me.
As my “break” went longer, I started to wonder if it was turning into a funk. With marathon training approaching, I started picking this apart, and wondering if I’d be able to dig back in and find the joy in workouts and long runs and hard efforts like I once did. I had a lot of awkward transitional days, when I tried to get back into it. A dance back and forth. There was some serious bargaining with myself.
The big a-ha: I was addicted to comfort. With so much of the challenge eliminated from life, I’d gone kind of soft. While I’m okay with the fact that I’ll probably never tolerate uncomfortable shoes again (sorry, fashion, just probably not happening), I miss my grit, and I’m ready to reclaim it, thank you very much.
In my recent post about bargaining, there’s a line from my mental back and forth: “You might as well just finish the strides because this is how you become a better runner.“
As I’ve worked to pull myself out of that funk and into training for Boston, I found I’ve been repeating this to myself. On countless runs, and even outside of runs when I need a little push:
This is how you get better…
This is how you get better…
This is how you get better…
This short phrase has been surprisingly helpful. Just a few words, and yet they motivated me to stay in my workout. I don’t have to hit my paces, and things don’t have to be perfect. I just have to show up and do the work. After saying it so many times, I realized this is my mantra for this training cycle.
Boston’s hills and notoriously crazy weather may very well humble me, but it won’t be because I didn’t put in the work. And the outcome of a race is only a tiny part of the story anyway. Most of the story is what happens in the preparation. This is how you get better.