ikilledit

6. To you, what is the hardest thing about running?

It’s the discipline of it. I love running. But, there are days when it absolutely sucks. The discipline is what is most difficult. As a runner, your brain and body become accustomed to a certain level of activity. On those days when you feel at your worst, at your lowest, it’s difficult to tell your brain and body that you’d rather not go out and run for 40 minutes. That you want to just sit on the couch and drink beer and eat a pizza. 

The discipline transforms itself into that nagging voice, guilt, sadness even. As a runner you get very emotional about running and NOT running. There’s a reason that non-runners often talk about runners as having a kind of mental illness. It gets inside of you and it doesn’t let go. This blog is an example of that. The only reason it exists is so that I can keep running on the brain. I am aware of my own bad habits. I know that I can rationalize and get lazy very quickly. So I keep on writing, keep on talking about it. It keeps it on the brain. And it’s all tied in with the discipline of running. 

You have to train yourself to keep it in your life. It’s not easy, it’s often very difficult and particularly maddening. But you do it. You keep on doing it. There’s no going back.