Shouldn't I Be Enjoying This?

In a strange way, I'm kind of glad that I had to rest last week.  I mean being in pain sucks, but it did force me to take a step back and really think about my running.  And frankly, running and I weren't on the best of terms.

Speaking of lackluster

Somehow in the 18 months or so that I've been running, I totally lost sight of what it means to me.  I'm not the runner who has been doing it since running track or cross-country in high school.  I couldn't even run the 250 yard dash on our yearly track & field days (but I always picked the longest distance just so I'd be the only one in my class to do it, and would automatically place and get a ribbon - and that, folks, is the last time I won an AG award). I'm not a marathon runner.  I'm not the runner who goes out and knocks out 10 miles just for fun.  I'll never be those things, and that's okay.  I know what I'm not, but I forgot what I am.  I'm the runner who, for nearly 31 years, didn't even know I could be one.  I was so overweight and inactive for such a long time, I never thought I'd be able to run.  I still remember how exhilarating my first real outdoor run felt.  I had to stop to walk every few blocks, but I managed to log 2 miles.  I remember the first time I was able to run an entire 5k without stopping to walk.  I remember that first 5 mile run, and what a huge distance that seemed like.  None of these things happened that long ago.

Yet I seem to have lost sight of that.  When I started running, I just felt so grateful that my body actually let me do it.  I wasn't sure how long I'd even be able to keep it up as a hobby.  A year and a half later, I've run 15 races, broken several PRs and PDRs, run a half-marathon, met all kinds of fun people as a result of running, and even helped co-found the most awesome Wurst Running Club Ever.   This is all more than I ever thought I'd do related to running, but these last few months I've not really been trying in my training, had a lot of bad runs, and even started dreading having to run.  So bowing out of the Grand Rapids Half was probably not the worst thing, and I'm hoping that it'll help me regain some focus.

This is the feeling that I want to get back

So from now on, I'm going to try to enjoy running again.  Now that I'm not in training, I never have to run.  I think I'll probably go back to just running a couple times a week to supplement the rest of my fitness routine.  Running when I want to, because I want to, sounds a lot better than feeling obligated to run a certain number of miles on certain days.

And while I'm making running resolutions, I'm also going to stop apologizing for being slow.  After talking to Kim pretty extensively about this over the last year or so (because our friend anniversary is coming up - yay!), I kind of get the feeling that people wouldn't run with me, at my pace, if they didn't want to.  I've run with runners that can complete an entire marathon in the time that it took me to do a half (here's looking at you, sausages of WRCE), have run Boston, regularly do crazy fast speed work, and some who have been at this for most of their lives.  But I've also run with people who are my pace or even slower, and the thing is, I never mind slowing down.  So it's possible that faster friends don't mind slowing down to run with me.

This particular point came to mind a couple weeks ago when I was trying to convince my friend to join a group run near her house.  She doesn't really have any local running buddies, which would really suck, so when she told me she got invited to a fun run by someone she met at a trail race, I told her she had to do it.  She was worried about everyone being faster than her.  I told her that no one runs alone at fun runs, someone will run with her, and that she shouldn't feel bad about her pace.  That's the thing - it's a fun run, the point isn't to break any speed records, but just to hang out with other runners.  So here I am, remembering my own advice.

I don't know what this means for my running in the future.  Although there are no races on my calendar for the rest of the year, I'm certainly not against doing more, trying to break my PRs, or even training for another half someday.  But for now, I'm going to get back to the basics and just enjoy the fact that I'm even able to run.