Why I Stopped Running

12 Jun 2022 at 06:15 // under Running

As a student I loved running and entered lots of races but, after graduation that pretty much stopped. My first job in a sugar factory was pretty exhausting. Lots of shifts, involving lots of time on my feet. When I had a rest day, I needed to rest. On top of that I had moved to a new town where I knew no other runners. All this led to the end of my running.

Over the years my job has changed into a more conventional day job, mostly sitting at a computer. Unfortunately it was harder to pick the running back up again than it was to drop it. I had a go for a few months in 2013, but then, just as I was making progress with my fitness, I had to stop for a plant shutdown that lasted nearly 3 months. By the time the shutdown was completed I had lost all momentum. My routine was lost and I found myself several years later still not doing any running.

In 2019 I started to make use of the parkruns. I hoped that having a regular event in the week's diary would encourage me to keep going. That the weekly competition would drive me to improve. And I did see some improvements, though they were modest. I wasn't really doing any other training. My time for the 5k never dropped below 20 minutes which was depressing because back as a student I could do double the distance in less than 40 minutes. Age and a lack of consistent training will do that. As a result, even by the time the pandemic stopped all the events, I had in reality already stopped taking part. I just wasn't enjoying it enough and family life kept getting in the way.

More on how and why I returned to running soon...

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