Spring is on it’s way here in Columbus. The birds are out signing more and the squirrles are chasing each other around. We had temps in the 50s and 60s last week which for us is a little unheard of at this time. It’s starting to stay lighter out more and we are starting to see little signs of life come back into the trees and gardens.
While today is a grey, overcast and cool, the buds on our tree in the back keeps my spirits high because I know that winter will soon be past us.
While I hate summer running, I am ready for some sunshine. This winter has been rough. We usually have a good deal of sun here in the winter but not this year. Most of the winter was grey, dark, and overcast. I’m pretty sure that it snowed close to everyday in December. Yuck!
This week was a bit different with running, I only ran three times this week but they were decent runs with great mileage. Earlier in the week I got in a nice 6 mile run and a great 8 mile run.
Today I ran 5 miles because I opted to sleep in over a big huge long run. This morning as I was deciding about whether to stay up for a long run or sleep in some more, I came to a realization about my running.
I need to consider that just maybe I need to put the goal of a spring half on hold for now. School has me insanely busy and at the same time I’m maintaining this blog AND trying to plant seeds for my new business that I’m building as a Holistic Wellness Consultant.
Right now it’s a lot of work. You can ask Scott how busy I’ve been and how much it’s wearing me out.
Training for a spring half is weighting on my mind heavily and also causing me some anxiety. My running schedule at this point has to be more flexible due to all the new things I’m working on. There might be a day where I normally run that I can’t because I have a meeting or I’m too tired. Perfect example is last Wednesday would have been a normal 8 mile day for me. I couldn’t do it and I needed sleep big time. And sleep I did.
For 12 hours.
Yeah.
I’m constantly worried about my mileage and have the thoughts of, “Oh my mileage was low this week.” Or “I really need to start bumping my mileage back up if I’m going to run in May.”
It is stressing me out. I keep feeling like I’m constantly behind and almost like I have to rush to work on miles.
I can’t rush or push things because I will get injured. I have no desire to get injured and be off running for a while. Been there, done that and I have no intention of living through it again.
Yeah I'm running..
Running is my happy place. It makes me feel good and it’s my stress reliever. It shouldn’t be causing me stress, ya know?
And right now with school and business building, I need all the stress relieving activities that I can get.
I think I need to put the goal of a spring half on the backburner for now. It will be one less thing I have to worry about and I can continue to run without having mileage be this big burden for me. Running will return to being my happy place instead of a cause for concern.
I’m still going to work on increasing my mileage because distance running makes me very happy. However I’m going to take my time and when it happens it happens. If it happens in time for a spring half, great I’ll sign up! If it doesn’t then no big deal. I do a few other smaller races this summer and just have fun.
Once I came to this realization this morning, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I’m a lot happier now that I can run and focus on that being my “me time” instead of stressing over numbers and a looming race date.
Have you ever had to reevaluate your goals when it comes to running and exercise? How did you handle it?
Remember guys, I don’t just run but also do other forms of exercise as well. I tend to only talk about running here though. You can follow my daily exercise adventures on Daily Mile.
That’s right! You need to figure out what your most important goals are and work towards what’s best for you overall. Good Luck with that. Yesterday we opted to clear our property a little over hiking. I think we probably got in the same amount of exercise, but we finally accomplished something that needed to be done, which was more important yesterday.
It definitely sounds like you need to take a step back. I know for me it is really easy for running and training to become a worry instead of a fun way to exercise. The thing is you are in incredible shape and live a super healthy lifestyle. You won’t lose any of that by taking things down a bit and you’ll likely return to the place where running is less of a stressor.
Hope things go well this spring! You are going to be a great HWC!
Sounds like you are being smart. I hate feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes all you need to lift that feeling is to revisit goals & priorities. Much better than taking on too much and being miserable.
I’m so glad you’re doing what’s good for you. It’s so hard to cut back when our heads are telling us to keep going. Proud of you!
Re-evaluating my goals is what I’m all about right now; that’s what the stress fracture has done to me.
I need to learn to pull back. And that means realizing that there are certain goals that are going to have to take a back seat to my recovery.
It sounds like you’ve definitely made the right decision. Sometimes it’s easy to get wrapped up in an exercise goal that you forget that you have to balance this with the rest of your life. Sometimes that’s doable and other times it’s not. I’m glad you’re doing what’s best for you. And come May, you can always change your mind, or run the quarter.
I think it’s great that you are taking a moment to re-evaluate instead of letting something that makes you happy stress you out. There will be many more half marathons and I think it sounds like you have already made up your mind. Putting one half on the back burner is okay and I commend you for doing what’s best for you right now.
Good for you! I am happy you re-evaluated and figured out what would make you happy. Following a plan or running with a goal race in mind is stressful! I like to just run whatever I feel like and then participate in races for fun
(So, build up a base mileage so I can run whatever I want, withing reason)