I've talked before about how deciding to become a distance runner can change your life. It can help you transform your body, it can help you discover untapped strength that lies deep within yourself and it can help you accomplish some damn incredible things. It can change you in many positive ways.
But there's also a dark side to this passion that we have for the open road. Even if you're lucky enough to be gifted with a better than average amount of fast twitch muscle fibers, it takes time to do the training, run that 5K, that half-marathon, that ultra marathon. It can become an addiction, albeit a healthy one. That can be fine if you're young, single and without a lot of responsibilities. You have nobody to answer to other than yourself. But when you have a marriage, a family, a career to contend with things can get a little tricky. Juggling all of those variables requires a good deal of patience and creativity. You have to learn to adapt easily and roll with what life throws at you.
This crazy urge to run for hours and prove yourself in distance races can get even worse when you start seeing your health change for the better, your split times getting faster and your recovery quicker. For some runners it's about setting the next new PR, running faster and going longer than last time. It's something that runs in your blood. For as much as you try to deny it, running becomes part of who you are.
This passion that you have for our sport can come at a price. Your family, your friends, the people that you care most about find themselves sacrificing more and more time with you as your personal victories mount. You sometimes miss your child's baseball game, don't have the energy to stay up and watch that movie with your spouse and don't have the time to meet your friends out for happy hour.
A long time ago when I first started running I quickly discovered how challenging it is to fit a 30 hour day into 24. It's one of the reasons that I typically run only one or two races in the Summertime and take the Winter and Spring off. Over the last few years I've enjoyed some of my biggest breakthroughs with regards to my running career. I drastically improved my fitness, entered the world of the run-net community through blogging and video podcasting, broke that four hour barrier and started a running streak. All while my family and friends watched and cheered me with copious amounts of enthusiasm.
I love the fact that I've overcome those challenges. It's become addicting to beat what I once thought of as unbeatable. With my decision to run my first ultra-marathon this year, let alone the Rochester Marathon and a second ultra, my free time has gone out the window. This has been hard on my family and friends leaving me feeling more than a little guilty about my ambitions.
So this week my perfect attendance to my training schedule fell. The streak lives on. But it wasn't my best training week. A lot of stress and challenges. Something had to give. Which wound up being a portion of my training for the week. As the week draws to a close I don't have any regrets. In many ways this week was a wake up call. What good is all that hard work and those thrilling victories without the ones that you love there with you? Without the incredible support and sacrifice of your loved ones those amazing victories would be nothing more than a number on a GPS watch, a sweaty race bib and a $5 medal.
Running is something extremely important to me. But it isn't everything. This week reminded me that it's only something that I do for fun. Why be so serious? If I miss a workout, a fail to nail a better mile split by a second or need to let my running streak fall that's OK. Life is wonderful and running is a way to complement it and live more fully. Not the other way around.
Thank you to my family and my friends for the support that you provide on a daily basis. Without you I'd just be some guy who can run really far. Say thank you to the ones who make us the amazing runners that we are. It's as much as of a race for them as it is for us. Everyone that knows me sees that I'm not giving up running anytime soon. I'm in it for the long run. I just have to slow down occasionally, enjoy the scenery, the wonderful people that support my crazy endeavors and be thankful for what I've been given.
Back at it this week! Time to give the legs some speed after this little step back. Hope you have a great week! Ride that lightning my friends...
This passion that you have for our sport can come at a price. Your family, your friends, the people that you care most about find themselves sacrificing more and more time with you as your personal victories mount. You sometimes miss your child's baseball game, don't have the energy to stay up and watch that movie with your spouse and don't have the time to meet your friends out for happy hour.
A long time ago when I first started running I quickly discovered how challenging it is to fit a 30 hour day into 24. It's one of the reasons that I typically run only one or two races in the Summertime and take the Winter and Spring off. Over the last few years I've enjoyed some of my biggest breakthroughs with regards to my running career. I drastically improved my fitness, entered the world of the run-net community through blogging and video podcasting, broke that four hour barrier and started a running streak. All while my family and friends watched and cheered me with copious amounts of enthusiasm.
I love the fact that I've overcome those challenges. It's become addicting to beat what I once thought of as unbeatable. With my decision to run my first ultra-marathon this year, let alone the Rochester Marathon and a second ultra, my free time has gone out the window. This has been hard on my family and friends leaving me feeling more than a little guilty about my ambitions.
So this week my perfect attendance to my training schedule fell. The streak lives on. But it wasn't my best training week. A lot of stress and challenges. Something had to give. Which wound up being a portion of my training for the week. As the week draws to a close I don't have any regrets. In many ways this week was a wake up call. What good is all that hard work and those thrilling victories without the ones that you love there with you? Without the incredible support and sacrifice of your loved ones those amazing victories would be nothing more than a number on a GPS watch, a sweaty race bib and a $5 medal.
Running is something extremely important to me. But it isn't everything. This week reminded me that it's only something that I do for fun. Why be so serious? If I miss a workout, a fail to nail a better mile split by a second or need to let my running streak fall that's OK. Life is wonderful and running is a way to complement it and live more fully. Not the other way around.
Thank you to my family and my friends for the support that you provide on a daily basis. Without you I'd just be some guy who can run really far. Say thank you to the ones who make us the amazing runners that we are. It's as much as of a race for them as it is for us. Everyone that knows me sees that I'm not giving up running anytime soon. I'm in it for the long run. I just have to slow down occasionally, enjoy the scenery, the wonderful people that support my crazy endeavors and be thankful for what I've been given.
Back at it this week! Time to give the legs some speed after this little step back. Hope you have a great week! Ride that lightning my friends...
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