Taking the good with the bad.
It can be hard to find peace in a sport when things don’t go right, and actually things often go very wrong, over and over again.
Running is for everyone (no matter what some people say!), but how long it takes to get addicted to running will depend on the person, just like the amount of time it will take to get better at running, and of course, stop getting injured.
People often wonder why running is so hard at first, and spend hours researching how to run better, but running does not ever really get easier.
You might be wondering:
If running is so hard for me, and running never really gets any easier, then how do people get addicted to running?
Today we are going to show you why it is worth persevering, and how beautiful running can be. Those of you who have found a lifelong friend in running, will already know this too well, but if you are struggling with running motivation, this may be just what you need.
Success in distance running means different things to different people.
There are the few at the highest level of the sport who will be satisfied with nothing less than Olympic gold medals or world championship titles, basing their success on winning every race they run.
Then there are those who find success in the first time they are able to run a mile without stopping, no matter how slow.
The rest of us fall somewhere in between.
Why is Running So Hard?
As we grow in the sport, we are asked often by other runners, “What is your PR?”, which engrains in us the idea that success is time-based.
We strive to beat our personal bests, and the more we improve, the harder this becomes.
As a professional long distance runner who has been competing for well over a decade, there is one truth that I know is universal.
Running is hard.
In my experience there are FAR more bad days than good days.
There are far more races where you trudge home with your head down, races full of side stitches and bloody feet and audible panting than easy wins in front of cheering crowds.
Embrace the bad days
When you finish a race that does not go well, especially a race like a half marathon or a marathon, even though you followed your marathon training schedule, things can go wrong for a very, very long time, but they help you build character.
You are faced with the question of
“Do you want to finish this race even though ‘success’ is out of reach?”
If your answer is “yes” you find a different kind of victory.
The races I’ve won with my hands in the air have not built my character or shown me what I am made of.
The race in which I finished dead last on the track, lapped by nearly the entire field showed me what I was made of.
I chose to finish, limping past the grandstand full of thousands of people while being “pity-clapped” across the finish line.
It was embarrassing, it was heartbreaking, it made me stronger and now, years later, I wouldn’t take it back.
I’m not asking you to celebrate when things go wrong.
It is okay to be upset and mourn a bad race, especially a goal race for which you had high hopes, but the best athletes in the world know that there are lessons to be learned from the bad races and mental toughness to be built from struggle.
Why You Never Really Fail at Running
The only way you can truly fail during a race is to walk off the course, hang up your shoes and never run another step in your life.
Each time you choose to lace up and hit the road after a rough race or a DNF, you are choosing to be brave and give it another shot, despite the almost definite potential of future failure.
There have been many times throughout my running career, and I’m sure throughout yours as well, that I’ve told myself “never again”.
The first time I ran a marathon, I told myself I would never run another one again, and I said the same after the second.
But somehow, most people who adopt running as a lifestyle end up coming back to the hard races and rising to the challenges again, and I believe there is a simple reason why.
It all boils down to one single question:
Why do you run?
To run chasing money or fame or glory only pans out for .0000001% of all runners.
It is an incredibly difficult sport to make a name or a living at, and yet, the rest of us continue to do it, most losing more times than winning and struggling more times than succeeding, but if the reason you run stems from a joy deep down, a passion for spending time on your feet out in the world and a thirst for the knowledge of how good you can be compared to yourself, then no bad race or rough workout or hot summer or snowy winter can break you.
Unfortunately, giving up is rampant among my generation.
Millennials bounce from one career to another, throwing in the towel when the job proves to come with drawbacks and hardships.
The thing is, every single job on planet earth comes with drawbacks and hardships.
Running, though not a “job” for most, is no different.
Does running ever get any easier?
It is easy to look at the best in the world, the Olympians and Major Marathon winners, and assume that they float through every run effortlessly at 5-minute mile pace, but this could not be farther from the truth.
These athletes struggle and break down and fail just like everyone else, but perhaps the biggest difference is that they are willing to glean the lessons from the bad days and then forget about them and move on.
People often forget that Meb won the Boston Marathon just a few short months after an absolutely horrendous race at the New York City Marathon (remember to read our NYC Marathon race strategy and guide!).
After NYC people said he was done, washed up, but the 39-year-old let the bad race go, trained hard and won Boston, an incredible comeback.
More significant perhaps than his physical achievement was his mentality, he believed in himself enough to have the confidence that he could do it.
If failure is going to happen, how do I stay motivated?
You will spend time, overtrained, injured or mentally burnt out or all of the above.
You will have bad workouts and races. Sometime you may have several bad races in a row.
You may spend a year or two or five without seeing a single personal best, but you can choose now to be unshakable.
Look through your running log.
Is it full of complaints? Do you whine about the weather every single day and focus on what went wrong during your runs?
If this sounds like you, take a step back and remember why you do this.
No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to run, this is a lifestyle that you chose because underneath everything else, you love to run.
So start seeing the bright side, even on the bad days.
Be grateful for those last few miles where it poured on you, that built grit.
Be thankful for the hard workout that you struggled through in the heat, it is going to pay off big time in the fall.
Challenge yourself to see past the failures, they are there so that you may appreciate the success.
