Monday's Meditation: The Break Up

After my half-marathon this past May running and I decided to take a break. I realized throughout all of the training, and preparing it felt more and more like a chore... not an enjoyable activity.

I felt pressure to do well, and afterwards felt that to some people I hadn't done well enough, or that the way I went about the whole process wasn't right. Or that the only reason I did semi- well was that I trained a lot (which 3 runs a week felt too little). It just made me feel like I could've done better or that I should've. Don't get me wrong, I am beyond proud that I accomplished this race and at a decent time, but I let others take that from me and it made me hunker down more in my decision to not be running.

Then I picked up Born to Run by Christopher McDougall... and I'm forever grateful that I did!!

(Source)

If you are/were a runner, athlete, or someone that just likes a good story... I highly recommend it!  I'm realizing the longer I read, the better I feel about my decision to take a break with running.

I want to run because I enjoy it, because it makes me happy, because I feel good when I'm out there. I want to run with JOY!!! I want to run for ME! And right now... it just ain't happenin'.  Running shouldn't be some painful experience, our bodies should love it! (After all they were built for that purpose) but as a society we've completely lost our dependency on our bodies, feet, and what they can accomplish!

I'm hoping that soon I'll find my love of running again, and when it comes I'm just going to go out there and have fun :) Do I still want to run more races? definitely. But I want to leave all pressure and expectation behind me and just love it! So until that happens it'll be Insanity and P90X for me, which I'm ok with.

So I won't say goodbye to running... we'll just say "see you later" and remember that absence makes the heart grow fonder :)