Marathon.....What Marathon?

Well, I got in exactly two training runs the week of 12/4 before I quit marathon training again. In some ways, my lack of perseverance is disheartening, but to be completely honest, I just don't feel guilty about packing it in again. My motivation is just not there right now. I had to push myself out the door for those first two training runs. It was all I could do just to get through them. This is just not how I used to be while training. Something is obviously not right with me right now nor has it been since Nashville back in April.

I have thought a great deal about why I'm not motivated to run and why all of my old enthusiasm for running seems to have evaporated (at least temporarily). I have not come up with a definitive answer, but I do have some thoughts that at least begin to make sense to me.

One thing that I'm relatively certain about is that I have become a "marathon snob". This is not a moniker that I came up with myself, but heard or read somewhere. At this point, I just have it in my head that any race shorter than a marathon is just not worth the time and energy it takes to prepare. Don't get me wrong; I realize that my times at shorter distances are far from impressive and could be improved upon substantially, but I just don't care to make the effort. If I'm not training to run the full 26.2, I just can't be bothered it seems. I guess that I have always been geared that way when it comes to doing anything. It's either all or nothing. Marathoning to me represents the all, and any other race represents the nothing. This is completely a mental/psychological thing, and I'm obviously aware of it at this point, but I just can't seem to or don't want to get past it at the current time. Will that change down the road? Who knows? I hope that it will.

Something else that I have become aware of that is related to the whole "marathon snob" syndrome is that over the past few years I have put a lot of pressure on myself to train for marathons, complete them, and hopefully run a PR in the process. I suppose that after the Country Music Marathon (where my performance was not good), all that pressure in combination with my disappointment at my performance just came to a head and snuffed out my motivation. Over the last couple of years of training for and running marathons, the marathon itself was my reward for 16 - 18 weeks of hard training. In this manner, the marathon (and my performance in the race) served as motivation during my training for that race and the next one after (where I would look to improve). I knew that if I didn't prepare properly, I wouldn't perform well and may not finish the race. The fear of failure and/or poor performance motivated me to get my butt out the door and train. Now, the unfortunate thing is that I really don't feel compelled to run any particular marathon so the race itself can't serve as motivation for my training. Without that motivation to train, why bother? Like I said earlier, it's pretty much all or nothing for me with most things. If I'm not going to run 30+ miles and do speed work, tempo runs, and the whole bit, why run at all? I have found that when I do go out and run now, I really haven't been enjoying it like I did in the past. Something just seems to be missing.

What is the answer to all of this? I'll be damned if I know, but I have put some pretty serious thought into it. One thing that I think I need to do is to get back to basics with my running and working out. I need to put away the HR monitor and the GPS unit and forget about pace per mile, tempo runs, etc. I need to get back to the pure and simple experience of running. I need to have my running served raw or rare as opposed to the marinated, julienne-cut, sauteed, and garnished version that became the norm over the last few years. If I don't enjoy running for what it has always meant to me in the past (a perfect harmony between myself and the outdoors while getting me and keeping me in shape), then I'll never stick with it over the long haul.

I also need to re-evaluate the goals and expectations that I set for myself. Over the last couple of years, my goals have gradually but continually been ratcheted up to the point where standing on the ground and looking up at them now is pretty intimidating. I need to start fresh and establish some basic goals for myself. I need to get myself back into a regular habit of running and working out before attempting anything too ambitious. I have tried to jump from barely running at all right back into intense marathon training with no period of adjustment in between. It is just too overwhelming at this point. It's almost like I know from the outset that I'm going to fall short so I immediatey resign myself to failure and give up.

I guess that this time is the right time of year to be looking inward and setting new goals for myself since the new year is right around the corner. I won't call the new goals that I set "resolutions" because the New Year's resolutions that people make generally don't last for more than a month or two. I really want to take a long look at where I am now and where I want to be and then chart myself a realistic course to get there.