RUNNING, AGAIN: THE SUCK AND THE DRIFT
This post isn’t meant to be uplifting. But read on if you’ve ever had to take a break from running (injury, illness, pregnancy, burnout, life) and then dared to come back to it. Or if you’re tired of ‘running’s great’ content.
Returning to running after a prolonged break usually means a few things. First, something in your life went sideways. Second, you survived it.
That means you’re tough, but not necessarily tough enough for a running comeback. Because the return is brutal, and it usually starts here:
DELUSION
The running comeback begins with delusion. For a brief moment, or much longer, you believe you can pick up where you left off. That your joints can handle the same weekly volume. That your old threshold pace still means something. And that muscle memory might cover the fitness gap.
(It won’t.)
FRUSTRATION
Delusion doesn’t last. Eventually it gives way to frustration.
And holy f*ck, is it frustrating to cough your lungs out on an easy 5km run. To finish feeling betrayed by your body. To know how great running can feel, but instead feel like crap before, during and after every single run.
FOMO
Then there’s FOMO. Not basic b*tch ‘I-wish-I-were-faster’ FOMO, but the kind that comes from losing part of your identity. For some runners, not being able to run means losing their routine, their place in the running community, part of themselves.
Some stop showing up. Some mute group chats. Some delete Strava. Because drifting away can feel easier than facing other runners…
HUMILITY
No runner is more humble than one who’s had to go back to square one. Won’t expand on this. If you know, you know.
REFUSAL TO SURRENDER
But here’s the thing: in life or running, few people are more determined than those who’ve had to start all over again.
If that’s you, this post wasn’t written to praise or encourage you. You don’t need it.
This post is a simple hello. To say that the running community sees you: in the suck, in the drift and in your refusal to surrender.
That’s all.