I don’t write much anymore. I should. I feel everything so deeply that it burns. My emotions are brutal. My mind races. I think constantly. I can’t sleep. I can’t escape the thoughts swarming my mind. When I write I find peace. I don’t write much anymore but I should because I need to find peace. I used to write a lot to sort out how I feel. When I write I can understand my thoughts and emotions and connect with myself. I used to write about all kinds of things happening in my life but not much is happening in my life. I don’t write much anymore because I can’t accept reality. To write it makes it real.
The sad reality is that I will never feel like I can come back from the running rut that I am in. It is nearly 6 years deep and getting deeper each day. Running has always been a grounding force in my life. It has shaped me into who I am, it has led me toward everything I have, and it has been a critical part of my lifestyle and identity for as long as I can remember. Lately, running makes me feel void. I will likely never run “fast” again. It has been almost 6 years since I’ve been a happy, fulfilled runner. None of the running I’ve done is running I am proud of. Most runs just make me sad. Most runs just make me feel disconnected. I can’t even run alone anymore unless I am listening to an audiobook. I can’t stand being alone with my thoughts and I have to escape into the stories of other people to get through the runs. There is a significant disconnect. It is a disaster. I’ve essentially blocked out all of the defining moments I’ve had as an athlete because it is too painful to remember them and then realize that it’s over. I don’t want to remember the days I was fast and determined. I don’t want to think about how incredible it felt to train and work toward something. It makes me sad and depressed just thinking about it. I miss driving an hour each way to run track workouts with my friends. I miss competing every weekend. I once ran a 10k on a Saturday and then a 10 mile race on Sunday, and the times were fast. I can’t even imagine that now. I miss doing long runs. I miss running 50-60 miles a week. I miss feeling sore from training. The only soreness I feel now is injury related. I miss the grounded feeling of accomplishment I get from running. I miss being me. I wish I spent more time cherishing those great running years while I had them.
Everything seems incredible when it’s behind you. I’ve been sad and depressed about the state of my running for so long that I seem to have forgotten how stressful competitive running can be. I seem to have forgotten how even at my fastest it was never going to be good enough. Now, I wish I celebrated improvement and success rather than squandering it. That adage, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, is true. For years I have been nostalgic for a time in my life I did not appreciate. I’ve been wishing to find that kind of fulfillment, and yet when I had it I know that I didn’t feel fulfilled at all. In fact, I failed a lot and those failures caused me to crash and burn. Time and perspective shift things. I once longed for a time when running competitively wasn’t a major part of my life. I dreamed of running for fun rather than running for sport. Be careful what you wish for. Now that wish has come true and I am more miserable that I could have imagined. I miss the thrill of running hard and training. I miss the lifestyle. Ironically, I miss the stress of competing.
I am in a rut that keeps getting deeper and deeper. I trained hard for a marathon in 2019 and my performance did not match my training efforts. Everything went wrong. In 2020 I had some mild achilles tendonitis and everything was canceled. A bad race and a global pandemic will squash anyone’s motivation. Things were looking up in early 2021 and then I slipped going downhill on a hike and hurt my knee. While dealing with the knee injury I found out I was pregnant. I never could find much momentum with running after that even though I did run throughout my pregnancy. At the end of 2021 I had my daughter through a difficult c-section and she had a lot of health issues. When I started running again in 2022 I realized I had a profound case of urinary incontinence and by March of 2022 my SI joint had popped out of place. When I could start running again I never really felt motivated to run far or push the pace because I would end up completely soaked with pee down to my shoes! Nevertheless, I kept going. By February of 2023 I had significant pain in the back of my left heel that turned out to be severe achilles tendonitis with a calcaneus bone spur. I was sidelined from running from May 2023-November 2023. In November I was able to start jogging short distances in the PT office. During that time I was in a walking boot and started a new coaching job– a dream come true professionally paralleled with an injury. Mentally I was falling apart. In 2024 I slowly started building back my endurance and running more and more over time. In the spring and summer of 2024 I ran several 5ks under 23 minutes. In October I had a procedure done to help with the urinary incontinence, however I will need to have surgery at some point in the future to permanently correct it.
As 2025 progresses I’ve been sick several times and most recently I’ve had some pain on the bottom of my right foot. Throughout all of this I’ve maintained an average of 15-20 miles a week and I feel completely furious every time I run and fall short of reaching the mileage I was reaching 10 years ago and even more furious that I can’t even hit the lower mileage I was hitting back in 2019. After every run I fear that something will go wrong. I fear that I’ll end up injured. Every run I stress over whether or not I’ll be able to finish the run without peeing myself. Sometimes I don’t even make it out the door because of this. My body has never truly felt healthy or strong after having a baby. Running has felt so much more difficult and it’s not the same. I’ve adjusted and I’ve accepted my reality. My life isn’t set up to train like a competitive distance runner anymore and I’ve been struggling to run at all. I still keep trying despite the fact that it crushes my soul. The truth hurts. Reality hurts. Knowing that it will never be the same does not make it easier. What makes it easier [right now] is forgetting what used to be and trying to move forward. So, that is why I don’t’ write much anymore, because writing about running hurts.
The Road Less Run 