I don't love racing

Maybe you could focus on embracing and loving the pain.

Try to think about what made you love running and see if those memories rekindle the spark. Sounds like you have mailed it in already.

Presumably, there was a time when competing was fun for you. Try to remember what made it fun. Did you have more clearly defined goals? Or, maybe you had no clear goals, and that's what made it fun? Did you have a rival you wanted to beat, or a time you really wanted to hit?

Are you maybe thinking too much about trying to run a certain pace, rather than just racing?

Maybe you just don't like it as much as you thought you did. I've seen several solid D1 runners go through that. Most were happier after they quit; nothing wrong with that.

bumping this thread because I have a similar issue, albeit at a lower level.

I'm guessing it was fun when you were in HS and able to win races. Now you're getting smoked and it's hard to see how finishing 100th in a race is important.

You can focus on a few things.

Personal improvement. Pushing your limits. His far can you take your body.

Team. Being s contributing member of your team. Sounds like you are racing aimlessly. You need to compete for your school, team, and coaches. When it's all about you it's easy to give up.

Train a lot harder. If you feel unsuccessful where you are. You need to be all in. Train until you put yourself in a more meaningful racing situation. Train like a mad man.

how much more training are you doing now as compared to high school? I went through some mental fatigue due to overtraining and had thoughts exactly like yours during races. Might be something to look into.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'm actually training a lot less. Workouts are harder (maybe) but my mileage is much lower.

Years ago, I trained under an Olympian. We were adult recreational runners... Boston qualifiers, but nothing like the level you're at. One of our better runners asked him, "What do you think about me just running a race easy, you know, just a hard workout?"

Our coach paused a long time, looked him in the eye and said quietly, "When you pin on that bib, it's special."

It got real quiet for a while. That simple sentence said so much... months of training, sacrifice, dieting, sweat, miles, and all the things we do, they all come together when you pin on that bib.

That was ten years ago. I remember it every time I pin on a bib. Saturday, I raced a low key 5k. One of my training partners, a guy better than me, passed me at the mile mark. I held on as best I could, knowing if I could just hang on, I might be able to outkick him at the finish.

I held on. With a quarter to go, I outkicked him by 9 seconds to the finish. I wasn't better than him. I just wanted it more.

You need to want it more. Putting on the bib is special.

I'm in the same boat as D1Runner.

Except for ~2 or 3 races ever (those days where everything just clicked and it felt like I was floating), I "shut down" as well. I'll get to the third lap of the mile or the 3K mark during the 5K - right when it becomes that make-or-break moment to have a great race - I just don't care anymore. I'll feel incredible on the start line, and even push the pace for the first half of the race, but the moment it gets tough, I start to second guess myself and wimp out. In the moment I don't care if I get beaten, I just want to be done. I'll even talk to myself mid-race and say: "You've trained so hard for this! You've sacrificed so much! This is where you finally get to show everything... Eh who am I kidding, this sucks. I don't care. I just want to be done."

I love running because I love training. Giving 95% efforts in workouts - hard but controlled - is my favorite part. But I HATE racing. I'll run as many workouts as I'd like and see I'm in great shape. I'll beat my training partners in workouts with much less effort, not even breaking a sweat. But I always lose on race day and never hit the race times I should be hitting. I'll be bummed after the race, but I never leave truly disappointed because I know my favorite part of running comes a few days later at the next workout. At the same time, it's so frustrating to get beaten by my teammates and the clock.

Who else was in the same boat but found a solution? I know I can drop a lot of time if I could even just hold pace for the last mile of the 5K, much less kick harder...

I've never been able to race at the same level I can train. If I taper for 3 days before important races and a week before the most important, then eat and sleep well all week and have a race that starts late morning, I come close. I focus on trying to pr or run my best times of the season. I do that enough times that racing is just fun enough I don't stop.

kvothe wrote:

I've never been able to race at the same level I can train.

There's your answer. If you over-exert yourself mentally and physically in training without enough recovery, you won't have the extra gear for racing.

I love my wife (and yours too).

This is indicative of how many people live life in general. Much like you look forward to the end of the race and go on auto-pilot, so many of us do the same thing in other unpleasant endeavors (work, classes, long trips, etc.). The real problem is escapism.

As you have gotten older, you have probably noticed how time seems to go by more quickly. The older you get, the worse this gets.

However, the one place where this doesn't happen is in the midst of a hard race or workout. Time seems to pass slower than what you think when you are suffering and focusing on the moment. So, embrace this! A race or hard workout is the one area where you are able to control your perception of time and slow things down.

If you have seen the movie "Fight Club," you could also think of the scene where Brad Pitt pours lye on Edward Norton's hand, giving him a chemical burn. His reaction, which is human nature, is to block out the pain and focus on something else. Pitt tells him to focus on the pain and embrace it. Do the same thing in your races.

yes. this is exactly how I feel. My friends keep telling me it's because I need a new environment and will be better next year (I'm transferring) but I think this is something that has been going on much longer than just college and I think it's deeper than just saying mantras to myself before and during the race because no matter how hard I try it always seems to go out the window.

Generally, the folks who unleash monster kicks or negative split still have gas in the tank towards the end of the race. It's not just that they're mentally tougher, they're simply better. (BTW, how do you even measure mental toughness?)

It's similar for most folks who always lose to their training partners in races. Maybe they have some great but unquantifiable racing skill, but more likely that they're just better runners and aren't pushing so hard in workouts.

If you repeatedly fail to maintain your goal pace, you have 3 choices:

(a) temporarily adjust your goal downwards, until you become a better runner

(b) adjust your goal downwards, indefinitely

(c) keep blowing up in every race

If you choose (a), there are no guarantees that your efforts to improve will pay off, but that's life.

by the way, it's really hard to enjoy racing if you always go out too fast and blow up.

Maybe you are running the wrong event.

Metric Miler wrote:

Maybe you are running the wrong event.

I've thought about that before. Dropping down and running an 800 every once and a while is a lot of fun and since the race is short, it's a different kind of pain. I don't get that "I don't care" feeling in an 800. I just run as hard as I can because the limiting factor is that my legs just can't move any faster. In a 5K, the problem is my entire body is exhausted.

The issue is I really like 5K training - long runs, steady runs, intervals, etc. - and that's the race I want to get better at.

I'm not talking about getting beaten by a few seconds or outkicked by training partners, but rather running times in races that you can in a tempo at practice.