The Work Should Be Hard. Your Relationship With Running Shouldn't.

A healthy relationship with running? This may be a little hard for me to answer honestly.

I'll be the first to admit that, as a runner, my own relationship with running isn't necessarily always a healthy one. If I could run for hours every day, I probably would.

As a coach, however, I know what a healthy relationship should look like. It means maintaining balance between different types of runs: recovery, threshold, long runs, and everything in between, along with strength training, mobility work, and actual recovery.

The problem is that we're runners because we love running.

When we have time to exercise, running is what we want to do. We have our favorite roads, routes, and trails. Before long, we can find ourselves running five or six days a week, with several of those runs covering the same route at roughly the same effort.

There's no balance. No variety. Strength and mobility disappear. Recovery becomes an inconvenience.

We love running so much that running becomes the only thing we do. Ironically, that can prevent us from becoming the runners we want to be.

When Doing More Feels Like Doing Better

For everyday runners, unhealthy pressure doesn't always come from a coach, competitors, or social media. A lot of the time, we create it ourselves.

We sign up for a race or set a goal. Then the voices begin:

I'm not running enough miles.

I missed a run because I was sick or had a meeting, so I need to double the mileage tomorrow.

I'll make it up on my rest day.

I don't need strength training. I just need to run.

If every run is hard, I'll get faster.

In my experience, the more dedicated we become and the farther we learn to run, the louder those voices can get. The easier it becomes to mistake doing more for doing better.

We often know better. We know recovery matters. We know every run shouldn't be an anaerobic effort. We know missed mileage doesn't need to be repaid. We know strength and mobility are part of training.

But knowing it and trusting it are two different things.

Early in my coaching development, I coached a friend for free as an assignment intended to make me a better coach. He followed the plan beautifully about 90 percent of the time.

Then he would feel good on a scheduled rest day or recovery day and decide to run a hard 10 miles.

The runner in me may have been slow clapping him in my head. The coach in me was left trying to adjust his training around the aches, pains, and potential injuries that followed.

It was eye opening.

An impressive workout and good training aren't always the same thing.

The farther we learn to run, the easier it becomes to confuse capability with invincibility. A runner starts thinking, I can run 31, 62, or 100 miles, so surely I can run as much as I want.

And that works until it doesn't.

Sometimes Hard Work Means Holding Back

The word hard is relative.

Running is hard work. If it weren't, a lot more people would be doing it.

It doesn't matter whether you're running a mile through your neighborhood in 20 minutes or attempting to cover 100 miles through the mountains of Vermont in under 24 hours. Both can be hard. Both require someone to choose discomfort and continue moving forward.

Hard work isn't always running farther or faster.

Sometimes hard work is following the plan, no matter how short or easy the scheduled workout appears. It's trusting that the process can get you across the finish line with your goal time and, hopefully, a smile on your face.

Sometimes hard work is doing strength or mobility work when you would rather run.

Sometimes it's taking the rest day.

And sometimes it's shuffling through a 45-minute Zone 2 recovery run while getting lapped by your 55-year-old neighbor, who is listening to a true crime podcast and wearing a weighted vest.

The urge to break into a sprint is undeniable.

Sometimes the hardest part of training is having the discipline not to run harder.

These Are My People

I've learned a lot from runners who train in darkness, rain, snow, and relative anonymity.

These are my people.

We've found something we absolutely love. We enjoy the challenge of doing it quietly in conditions that create different obstacles, experiences, and memories.

We've also accepted that most of us will never do this professionally. Hardly anyone cares that we're doing it in the first place, let alone wants to hear every detail afterward.

And yet, we're still setting an alarm for 3:30 in the morning.

There's something about switching on a headlamp and attempting to run through a world that looks completely different before sunrise. And yes, everything looks scarier in the reflection of a headlamp.

There's something about pulling a buff over your head because the rain is coming down so hard that you hope it will stop some of the water from running down the back of your neck, not because it's dangerous, but because it's incredibly annoying.

I still remember running through Kenmore Square in Boston with six inches of snow on the ground, trying to maintain a decent cadence while staying out of the way of snowplows.

The maintenance crews clearing the sidewalks clearly weren't expecting some dope to be running through the city at 5:00 in the morning during a snowstorm. I was repeatedly blasted in the face by the discharge from their snowblowers.

These are personal, amazing experiences that many runners never share with anyone. They can feel almost religious or spiritual.

The world may never know they happened, but you do.

At the root of those experiences are drive, determination, and, once again, discipline.

Nobody is watching. Nobody is keeping score. You won't become famous. It won't make you money. There's simply an additional level of discomfort.

But just thinking about those days makes my heart race.

That almost spiritual relationship with running has to start somewhere, though.

Sometimes it begins the first time you run between three telephone poles without walking instead of two.

That moment may look insignificant to everyone else, but the runner knows what happened. They went farther than they could before. They proved something to themselves, and they want to experience that feeling again.

The runner celebrating that third telephone pole and the runner switching on a headlamp for 100 miles through Vermont may be at very different stages, but the feeling at the center can be exactly the same.

These are my people because of what running means to them, not because of how far or fast they run.

Coaching the Entire Experience

The number one reason I became a coach was to help people build a relationship with running.

Yes, I may push an athlete when I believe they're capable of working harder. I'll also encourage them to stop and take in the moment when they reach a ridgeline or notice the sun beginning to rise.

I may ask to see the picture. More importantly, I may ask how the moment felt.

I want my athletes to appreciate the entire experience of running, not just the training piece.

I want to help someone become a better runner, but I never want them to become so focused on improving that they miss what running is giving them.

I don't coach from a pedestal. I know the voice telling runners to go farther, run faster, make up missed mileage, or ignore the rest day because I hear it too.

My role as a coach is to help athletes recognize when that voice is building them and when it's quietly tearing their training apart.

Running starts as something you do. With the right approach, it can quietly become part of who you are.

The work should be hard.

Your relationship with running shouldn't be.

And if all of this makes your heart race too, I want to meet you.