Dear Half Marathon: I’m writing this blog post to inform you that I’ve been struggling with you lately. Don’t take this the wrong way; it’s not you, it’s me that’s the problem. You’re perfect just the way you are. I’ve always loved that I could still train for you, work full-time, take care of my daughter when she was young, and fit other activities in my life as well. You weren’t as all-consuming as the Marathon was for me. You always felt like a challenge but it was a challenge I could handle.
Recently, however, I’ve found that I’m not happy when I’m running a half marathon, like I used to be. I guess our relationship is over, or we at least need to take a break for a while and see how things go. If it is over, we had a good run, 54 half marathons in all 50 states in 24 years is pretty good.
OK, now for the explanation of why I’ve been feeling this way.
When I found out I would have a free entry to the Savannah Women’s Half Marathon in April of this year, I was so excited. I had been to Savannah before, but only for a day trip from Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, and I loved the area, so the race would give me an excuse to go back and spend the entire weekend in Savannah. It would also be my redemption half marathon for the state of Georgia since the other half marathon I ran for the state during my 50 state quest was such a disaster Run the Reagan Half Marathon, Georgia-14th state.
But when race day was rolling around before my race in Savannah, I found that I wasn’t that excited at all for the race. In fact, I kind of dreaded it. I had been having intermittent Achilles pain starting a couple of weeks before the race and I thought the pain would likely pop up after a couple of miles into the race and I’d either have to walk, if possible, or drop out entirely. But if I’m honest, there was more to it than that.
After the race started, I thought I felt some slight Achilles pain but certainly nothing like what I had felt on some of my training runs (although not every time I ran, as I said it was intermittent). If I’m perfectly honest, I actually hoped my Achilles would start hurting in Savannah so I would have an excuse to drop out of the race. I even toyed with the idea of just lying and telling people my Achilles had started hurting so I had to drop out, even if that didn’t happen, but that’s just not the kind of person I am. In hindsight, I think my Achilles were perfectly fine, at least during the race with me wearing a different pair of shoes, and any pain I might have thought I had during the race was just in my head.
Never in my life have I had to do as much positive talk to myself during a race as I had to do during this race just to finish. Well, at least not for any races with ideal conditions and I had no health issues. This race was pancake flat, the weather was perfect for racing, the course was beautiful. There were simply zero reasons why I should have been struggling. I had no aches or pains. This is in contrast to some unbelievably difficult half marathons I’ve had to endure, like the aforementioned Run the Reagan, and the death march that was the Laughlin Half Marathon, Nevada-11th state, the time I was severely anemic and ran the Arbuckles to Ardmore Race for Mercy Half Marathon, Oklahoma-21st state, and more. So why was I struggling so badly during this race in Savannah?
On the car ride home from Savannah, I started thinking about this race and realized not only did I struggle mentally during this race, I also struggled mentally, although not as bad, during the Richmond Half Marathon in Virginia. At the time, I chalked up my struggle during the race to not having a solid base before I started training for the Richmond Half, but I don’t think that was the real reason I struggled in Virginia.
The Richmond Half Marathon was another race with ideal conditions- the weather was great for running, the course was mostly flat and had a fast downhill finish, it’s scenic, I didn’t have any injuries, and I had many friends there with me. Yet, I still found myself kind of dreading the race and wasn’t excited about it. I just wanted to “get it done.”
Looking back at my mile splits and finish time for the race in Richmond compared to the one in Savannah, they were very similar except for the last couple of miles where it’s a steep downhill in Richmond. If anything, the race in Richmond would be considered a bit tougher because there were at least some hills to run up that slowed me down there. Still, my finish time for both races was 1:57, with my race in Richmond a few seconds faster.
I think the true reason I struggled with both the Richmond and Savannah half marathons is because I’m burned out from half marathons. Prior to the half marathon in Richmond, the only other race I ran in 2023 was the The Krispy Kreme Challenge, a 5 mile race where you also scarf down a dozen glazed donuts halfway on the course, or as many as possible, far from a typical half marathon. Looking back even farther, in 2022, I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run, the Catching Fireflies 5k- My First Night Race!, and Two Firsts in Running For Me- My First Turkey Trot and My First 8k!. The Cherry Blossom 10 miler was amazing, as was the night race. The turkey trot was full of hills but I still enjoyed it. Of course, none of these races were half marathons.
So my last half marathon before the one in Richmond was all the way back in November of 2021, a full two years prior, when I ran the final half marathon of my 50 state quest The Albuquerque Half Marathon, Albuquerque, New Mexico-50th state. I started thinking about all of this and here’s my theory: I think because I push myself so hard internally at races (and most aspects of my life), I put this pressure on myself that frankly is exhausting. It seemed different when I still had my 50 states quest and I never felt like this during any of those races, for the most part anyway, except for the times when I was physically struggling, like during some of the races mentioned above, and when I was anemic or the course was extremely difficult.
Anyone who’s ever run a long-distance race knows it’s largely a mental game. It’s one thing to push yourself mentally for a 5k, and entirely another to push yourself mentally for 13.1 miles. That’s a long way to go if your head really isn’t there. You can easily talk yourself into feeling all kinds of things ranging from disappointment in yourself to sheer distaste for the race (“I’m never going to finish anywhere near the time I wanted to. Why did I even sign up for this? What am I doing here? This race sucks! It’s so hot! I’m so tired! I just want to be done!”).
The funny thing I also realized during my epiphany is I still enjoy the long training runs. When I was training for the Savannah Women’s Half, I liked going out for those 12-14 miles at the peak of training, so I don’t think it’s the distance per se, so much as it’s the racing half marathons that I’m tired of. When I’m just going on a 14 mile training run, there’s no pressure so I can take walk breaks, take some photos, and just enjoy myself. I wish I was the kind of person who could apply that mentality to races, but that’s just not me. I’m too competitive, not with anyone else, but with myself.
So what I’ve determined is I need a break from half marathons. Maybe not forever but at least for quite some time. I’ve only run a handful of 5k’s, a couple of 10k’s and 10 milers, and maybe one 15k. I’d like to run a 5k or 10k and see how that goes. Who knows? Maybe I’ll decide I never want to run another half marathon again; maybe 54 half marathons is enough for me. Or maybe a half marathon will pop up that draws me in and I’ll run it next year, but likely not this year.
If you run races, have you suffered from burnout and needed to take a break? How did you deal with it?
Happy running!
Donna