Are you starting to run again?

For a while I’ve felt like a lapsed runner, but recently I’ve set myself a goal of starting to run again.

I never really stopped running. But I did stop running ‘properly’. By this I mean, getting out at least three times and week and training seriously, watching what I eat etc.

I used to really love doing this, but somewhere over the last couple of years it just kind of fell away.
I can pinpoint lots of reasons for this.

Becoming a father again

mid-night bottle feeds and nappy changes, aren’t conducive to serious training, who knew?

Getting married

Back in the day I was running, swimming, cycling, walking up to four times a week. Funnily enough, that kind of obsessive desire didn’t seem to go down well with the other half after we’d tied the knot.

Losing my running buddy

At the same time as we got hitched, my running buddy also got hitched, and so our regular runs just drifted apart. That meant a lot of my focus and discipline simply to get running went out of the window, too.

Working for myself

Since leaving the sanctuary of paid employment to set up my own business in 2016, a lot of mental energy, let’s face it virtually all of my mental energy has been devoted to making sure there’s enough money coming in to live on each month. Strangely that has lessened my training intensity (except for one really bad point in 2018, when I was out running at 10pm to gee myself up, another story).

Running out of things to say

That’s not directly linked to not running, but it is why I haven’t posted for a while, as I just didn’t feel I had anything useful to say, and didn’t want to crank stuff out just for the sake of it.

The irony is of course, that had I stuck to my training plans, I think it would have helped.

Race fatigue

I was finding it hard to do the training for races, so decided to have a break from them for a bit.

A couple of bad marathons

Faltering in the last half of my second marathon at Richmond in 2018, I started to wonder ‘is this worth it?’ That told me I probably needed a break too.

But now the wheel is turning full circle and I feel a need to get back into things.

Here’s why – the scales are tipping at 13.5 stones, and for me that doesn’t feel like a good look.

Also, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about..

Life, the Universe and Everything

Without getting too heavy about it, a veil has been lifted a bit about what I want to do with myself and how I define success (big clue – it’s not about money, but about being healthy, doing the right things, being there for your kids and family etc).

It’s all lead to a change in approach in terms of work/life balance etc and going back to some first principles I had in mind when I quit my job, yet which somehow got lost.

But anyway, back to running and starting to run again.

So, while running never really went away, it had dropped down to a regular weekly Sunday run, and may be a second run in the week. But for me that definitely wasn’t enough.

Starting to run again

I’m hoping to do the Marriott’s Way 10k in October

It’s hard to believe when I started running properly again in 2007, I was doing half marathon times of 1.48.

For a long time, I’ve convinced myself, I’ll never get back to that standard. Though I’m optimistic enough to never say never.
But for now, if I set that as a goal, I feel I may be putting too much pressure on myself.

I’ve got the Ringland half in mind next year as something to aim for.

First off, however, I just want to get out there again and start enjoying myself.

Are you trying to get back into running after a long break? Let us know how it’s going!