Lost interest when I wasn't getting faster despite rapid improvement when I first took up running.
Got disillusioned when I saw crappy club runners creeping up on my 5k (them going from 20 to 18:40 and me staying on 17:50 forever). Weird thing is my half is signicantly faster than theirs on the same mileage but that endurance never translated over to 5k.
What an unhealthy need for external validation does to a mfr
I was tired of not improving. It's as simple as that.
Response like this are sad. It tells me you never enjoyed running for its own sake.
My PRs are decades old. At my age, I get slower every year. And I still run 30-40 races every year because I still love the sport.
Just as you likely wonder why I bother if I keep getting slower, I wonder why you ever wasted your time on a sport you didn't live. Life is too short.
It's not that I don't enjoy it, but there's only so many times I can run down the same roads and trails. So I instead turned my attention to trying to get faster.
I find running less enjoyable since the pandemic. There are more cars, dog walkers and basically people everywhere blocking up the trails. No one works anymore.