One of my self-imposed goals is to go running at least once a week. At least. Not a big goal when you consider that many people do streak running and go running every day. And I usually manage to keep this streak going, unless I'm really ill. Between 2020 and 2022, I managed it for nearly two years. Conversely, this also means that I was only sick for a few days at most.
Some stats
I didn't run for 20 days in a row this year - the last few weeks. I had to search for a long time to find such a long running-free period. 2022 was the last time. Covid-19 brought the above-mentioned series to a halt. I didn't run for 21 days. Even 35 days in 2021. Some nasty infection with an ongoing headache. Whatever. What am I actually getting at?
For me, not going running means losing a hobby I've grown to love. When I have time, I go running. I don't read a book, I don't go into the basement to put together any model airplanes, I don't paint pictures. Every free minute, almost anywhere in the world, I lace up my shoes and explore my surroundings.
Sorting your life
Running also means sorting out my life. I don't know how many things I've worked out with myself on runs, how many conflicts I've worked through, how many creative ideas I've had. When something is bothering me, it often accompanies me on my runs. If I don't go running, all these thoughts are trapped between work, family and everyday life.
And that's exactly how I've felt for the last three weeks. Trapped. Constricted. Too weak. Too fuzzy in the head. Unable to think clearly. A state I don't like, but I have to say that I've still managed the last three weeks without running well. This is because not running as a hobby frees up resources. You can read a book in the evening. Sometimes you do things that you might otherwise leave behind when your running shoes are calling you. There's also the fact that I simply felt so bad the last three weeks that I couldn't think about running and didn't have the greatest desire to do so. So the time went by surprisingly quickly.
Silver lining on the horizon
By the middle of last week, I felt like my head belonged to me again and not to the nasty sinusitis, and on Saturday the weather was so perfect and warm and sunny that I could finally go running again. And after weeks of rain and lousy winter weather, not only did the sky clear up, but my head cleared up too, which was incredibly good.
One point that was naturally weighing heavily on my mind was the question of whether I had enough resources for the UTMB in May and as the runs of the last three days weren't bad at all, I came to the realization that I would simply see how I was doing until the beginning of May and then decide whether I would go to France. I'm surprisingly optimistic right now. The training since the beginning of the year wasn't completely in vain after all, because the drop in performance wasn't as dramatic as I had feared. My heart rate was a little higher, of course, but yesterday I ran 15K and I felt like I could have done another 10. A week ago I thought my head was going to fall off.
Running and therapy
And just as I wrote last week that I was looking forward to my next therapy session because there was a lot to talk about, yesterday's appointment wasn't so stressful in the end because I was able to sort a lot of things out with myself during my runs before the therapy session. Running doesn't replace therapy, but it can be a wonderful support for therapy.
It's great what running can do.
Running
Two runs. Both around 7k. From the 14 weeks of my trainingplan for UTMB, seven went as planned. What a ratio! Hopefully the last 6 weeks will workout better, so that at least I had proper 12-13 weeks of training like most other people have for marathons for example.
You can find all updates on my training plan for UTMB Obernai here.
The end
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the benefit of running every day clearly is that the priorities are set in a way that you actually get to run every day :)