It wasn’t until I contracted the coronavirus and couldn’t exercise for fourteen days that I realized how important running is to my daily life. For weeks I have tried to verbalize the connection I found in the last year to this sport but struggled to voice a tangible reason why I keep lacing my shoes up every day. Running hurts, so why do we continue to do it? Why do we, the running community, put ourselves through grueling speed workouts and boring long runs on Saturday mornings when the payoff, a faster race time, is so often out of sight.
It turns out I don’t run solely to get faster, and I suspect you don’t either. It’s one of my goals. But if my only motivation was to beat my fastest times, I don’t think I would keep running for very long. Being sidetracked by the holidays and sidelined by Covid-19 is a tough blow to my current goal, a sub-3:30 marathon, and my long-term goal, qualifying for the Boston marathon. During the holidays I was still able to get workouts in, albeit in diminished volume. I anticipated this. When I tested positive for coronavirus, however, I was placed on a fourteen-day quarantine. This has meant fourteen days where I haven’t been allowed to run; I haven’t been allowed to partake in an activity which, for the last year, has been a brief hour of solace in an otherwise strange and confusing world.
In October I was blessed to have the opportunity to compete in the Little Apple Marathon in Manhattan, Kansas, which provided motivation to run nearly every day leading up to the race. But this wasn’t why I was able to sustain training in the heat and humidity of the summer. For starters, until I lined up at the starting line, I wasn’t sure if the event was even going to happen. Thankfully, my race wasn’t canceled, but hundreds of other races around the country were. The welcoming nature of the running community was what drew me into the sport initially, and throughout the pandemic it has been a key factor in keeping me motivated to improve and motivated to keep running. Like the members of many segments of society, runners took to the internet to vent about races being canceled and to share tips for improvement. I remember joining subreddits devoted to all things running and scouring YouTube to find devoted running vloggers, often delving into the comments sections to interact with fellow athletes. Spotify allowed me to engage with professionals in the sport through podcasts. Running provides me, and so many others like me, the opportunity to converse with a like-minded community and to offer encouragement and motivation when most needed.
Perhaps most importantly, though, running provides an opportunity to escape the mundane and free my mind during this uncertain time. Tempo runs allow me to focus solely on pace, heartrate, and the quality of my run. During longer runs I clear my mind and try to put into practice techniques I’ve been working on. There is something melodic and peaceful in getting out onto the pavement and just going hard. It is satisfying to look back on a good week of training and then look forward to the workouts next week. It’s something you don’t realize how much you love until it’s stripped away, even just briefly. I know that a few weeks without running won’t break me. But it’s helped me appreciate this sport, which I’ve chosen to make a part of my daily routine. I’m counting down the hours until my first post-Coronavirus run. Until then, I’ll sit back and appreciate what a gift running truly is.
What motivates you to lace up your shoes, get out the door and run? How has the pandemic affected your running? Leave a comment below to let us and others know why you run!
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