Love Running, Hate Running, Love Running

My relationship with running is one of those teenage romance style ones. Sometimes I love it. I love it so much that it takes over my life in the all consuming way that the first throes of a passionate relationship do. I'll get up early and run for miles and come back and feel awesome. I'll run a race, and everything will just click, my legs will feel full of energy and power and at the end of it I feel like a hero. I will spend all my time running or strength training. 

Then again, sometimes I'll run to the end of my road, want to cry because I just don't want to be wearing Lycra and running and wonder how, just two days previously I felt like I could achieve anything when running  0.5km kills me. These are the days that lead to long periods of inactivity. My Runkeeper is frantic bursts of running interspersed by weeks where it looks like I just vanished. This also leads to me never really achieving my goals. The muscles and power and speed I build up during my intense training is often lost during inactivity and hence I often perform less well that I believe I can. 

I've always been like this too. At school I was a reasonably accomplished athlete. I competed in National Cross Country competitions and in National Athletics ones too. I even won a few medals. I regularly ran 5km in 22mins and I barely tried. (As a side point, I know that's big-headed, I do, but I really was reasonably good and naturally talented. Then I discovered alcohol, smoking and boys and the enjoyment of spending Saturday morning earning money, not losing my shoes in muddy fields in deepest Gloucestershire.) 

Anyway, I digress.

 I used to feel like this even then. Some days would be enjoyable, and some days I'd try and convince my mum I was sick so I didn't have to get on a school bus. Once or twice, when it became apparent mid-run that this wasn't my day, I'd feign an injury and drop out.

I often felt like this was quite singular to me. I often spoke to other runners both in my former running life and in this one who tried to sympathise and told me they too just couldn't be arsed. No,no I said it's not lethargy, it's deepest loathing. Oh shush, they said, it's all the same thing. 

Recently however, my eyes have been opened and I have been on runs with other people when they have hit the wall and have played my part in dragging them round, and in turn they have helped me when I have hit that 0.5km WTF barrier and helped me keep going. Even when I've cried and begged them to let me stop. These are the best running partners, who truly get when you're struggling and treat it as normal, not showering you with pity and offering you excuses to turn round and head home.  

It's hard to run when you really can't find your mojo, when failure is slapping you in the face at every turn and when, sometimes the enormity of what you're trying to achieve becomes overwhelming, but good running mates can make a huge difference. One other thing I learnt this week, even a bad run can turn into a great one when you finish it, the sense of achievement is overwhelming.