For those who quit running, what were the mental stages leading up to finally doing it?

Do you have an e-mail or other way to contact you Wizard?

I hated running after my first year of collegiate running. 100+ miles/week, over training, over racing led to physical and mental fatigue and apathy. I quit the team, and eventually started training on my own, and have never looked back. That was 40 years ago, I just needed a break from it for a while.

Dude, it's time to take a break, go for a new distance or quit. Many on this thread think that you'll regret not gutting a couple of more seconds in your 5k, they're wrong. In 10 years you won't care and nobody else will care whether you ran 15:10 or 15:00.

I realized that this year that I also really hate that I have to grind for several months without setbacks to be in shape to break prs. I'd rather just enjoy running but try to make progress in other areas or sports.

Yep, if there's one thing I've learned about running during the COVID pandemic it's that racing is essentially incidental to my actual enjoyment of running. It does help that I can conveniently parlay running fitness into hiking 14ers, etc. so there's still a point to building fitness via training while keeping it fun and fit it in as I feel.

I wouldn't say that Boulder won't welcome you, as I don't know exactly what is pushing you away from Seattle. Just know that it may not be all that it appears. Due to the housing market, it's rapidly becoming exclusively wealthy people (mostly tax-and-spend liberal types), college students, and aggressive homeless people. It's difficult to hide from any of that, with little hope to gain nicer/larger housing due to pay increases being significantly outpaced by appreciation the middle class is fleeing. It has also become a lot busier with traffic (more in-commuting spurred by working classes fleeing), more like suburbia. Just some caveat emptor from someone who is still here and can find enjoyment despite the warts.

you should quit running. And quit this site. Forever.

Kev2 wrote:

Do you have an e-mail or other way to contact you Wizard?

Of course :) I think I`m allowed to give it here when asked for. You reach me at email;

I coach most of my runners at FB and Messenger and I`m also easy to find there. Welcome!

mtngoatrnr wrote:

You don't necessarily have to quit running. But it's very easy to lay off the serious, goal-oriented training. What I'd suggest, is to take a few weeks completely off. When you feel like running again, just quit thinking about your runs, leave your watch at home, and just go have fun. Seek out some trails, and stop to take photos along the way. Maybe even fast pack (mix hiking and running, and pack a lunch for a mid-adventure break). Just do something radically different from what you've been doing. If it still sucks, then you can reassess. A lot of people quick because they have no other choice—injuries stop them.

Jamin, make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.

If it`s really true you now think of quitting , why don`t you grab the way to train less but reach better results ? I have told you many times that you have potential to even run sub 14 / 29 at 5 k/ 10 k but you don`t take that chance, why? I have followed your strava training for a couple of years now but you mostly choose the wrong paces for you. If you just train 5-6 sessions per week there will be plenty of time left to do other things in life that you care for.......Can you just tell me why you avoid this opportunity ? Try the system and see where it takes you.....if it doesn`t function ( witch I strongly doubt) you can then just quit running or just run sometimes to stay in shape and health.

Depression. Leading to getting out of shape and losing that continuity. At some point, how much it hurt to be out of shape was not helping the esteem. But life goes on and long walks/fartleks with the dog get me outside.

Got into weightlifting instead

The ultimate stage, when you actually decide to quit, is when you believe the effort you put into running is not worth the benefits you get from running.

When it comes to making these decisions, every person is different and unique. Someone whos primary goal, their main or only perceived benefit, is to compete and do well at a national level in the marathon may decide to quit when they believe the effort required to run 120+ miles a week (and do all the extra things) is just not worth it anymore.

Someone running 15 miles a week for weight control may decide to quit when they no longer care about their weight.

You might want to make a list of the benefits or goals you have in running, and also what sort of efforts you believe are necessary to achieve those goals. If your list of benefits and goals is rather short, and/or the effort you believe is necessary to achieve those is great, you will find it easier to make the decision to quit. If you have a lengthy list if goals corresponding with numerous effort levels, it will be harder to quit.

As others have suggested, try focusing on your general basic running goals/benefits, the ones that require less effort to achieve, for a while. (if you have multiple goals). You may decide those are fine and stay at that level, you may decide to ramp things up after a while and chase bigger goals, or you may decide even those basic running benefits are not important and quit entirely.

Some people quit running primarily because they have to (due to injury or a life change situation).

Others quit because they want to. Sometimes its a combination of the two.

After decades of running I quit because a knee injury made it impossible to run without continuous pain. But I missed the routine, the habit, the effort, the weight control, the challenge, being competitive, the joy of being fit enough to easily cover miles of terrain rather quickly with minimal effort, my running friends, etc.

After over a year the knee healed enough to allow me to run some without pain. I started running daily again since I can achieve some of the benefits even while covering far fewer miles at a much slower pace.

I cut down mileage and frequency since I care about my long term health. More is no better, total fitness requires some form of resistance training, not just cardio.

Specialization is for insects -Arthur Jones

I haven’t cared enough to get upset about a bad performance since hs. Haven’t been on a team either or had a race I wasn’t happy or even pleasantly surprised about. I’ve always hammered runs so even without training was always capable of going sub 18. Kind of trained w a plan before covid. Won a few 5ks even PRed at 30. There is a pretty big race I’d like to do a little better in but the clock is ticking

There are a lot of small cities, maybe around 100,000 or so, where you would be the fastest runner in town. You would probably be the fastest runner in a handful of states, and these are places that have vibrant and active running communities, coed run clubs and racing teams, etc. Go be a big fish before you quit.

And if you do quit, running might come back to you later in life when you need it again. It doesn’t have to be permanent.

please quit. maybe then you'll stop coming to this website. but I know this is just another bait thread, you've said this many times before

I started reading this thread because it has been on my mind lately as well. Two years ago, I was building up to what eventually became PRs at 2:21 and 68:30. Last year, my first child was born and spent the end of the year injured well into this year. Now approaching 40, the combination of parenthood, injury, and full time work has forced me into trying to run 50 MPW, mostly before sunrise and feel burned out. The lack of racing this year due to the pandemic has given me some leeway to stray from diligent training, but I'm struggling to lose weight and generally exhausted.

I'd like to make a go of competitive Masters racing, but it's become a grind lately.

I am 56 years old and for the last two to three years I have spent more time in pain rather than feeling good. In the last two months, I have put on seven pounds mainly due to pushups, core work and TB12 exercises along with some sweet tea and beer. I actually look healthier. I still walk every morning with my wife and dog and run 15-20 miles a week along with playing tennis or disc golf once a week. My old training group posted some picson Facebook after a training run recently and my first reaction was "My God, they look gaunt." Bottom line, there is less pressure in life and I look better at 5'8" and 155 as opposed to 140 pounds (my elite racing weight).

Nearly 50 years of running. Still compete (At least pre-COVID). Tired of the grind of weekly miles; intervals; tempos; long runs with diminishing returns. I will always run (jog?) for fitness, however, I'm coming real close to quitting the grind. How do I know - I've tossed all the running hardware I've won or received over the years. And, I've tossed all my training logs. Everything was gathering dust anyway.

I've taken some LONG breaks from running. I never really felt like I needed to "quit" running, though, because running isn't something like chain smoking, sniffing glue, or beating your wife -- that one ought to "quit." Rather, it's simply something that one doesn't have to do.

My breaks have usually occurred in the summer months, when running in the heat is particularly miserable, and when training has the potential to ruin vacations for both me and my family. During the breaks, I still took the time to do something healthy for myself. Sometimes it was a new physical endeavor like boxing or rock climbing. On another occasion I read War and Peace, cover to cover, including the seemingly pointless second epilogue.

On balance, I am glad that I took the breaks. Had I not done so, I would have spent all my free time schlogging out miserable miles and would have missed out on other valuable experiences.

I would have also been a burnt out jerk. On the other hand, of course, is the possibility that I would be faster had I not taken the breaks -- but it's not like I was going pro anyway! I never ran faster than a 2:47 marathon, even when I was training 100% for several months. Now I usually go just under 3:00, and I find that nobody cares or knows the difference.

Take it easy on your self, my friend. If you want to run, you will do it.