Everyone has a reason why they run. When you stray away from or forget what that
reason is, you might feel a bit lost. I
think runners experience burnout for a variety of reasons. I’m certainly not
the expert in runner motivation, but I can share what happened to me.
When I decided to run a marathon in
every state, I didn’t intend to do it all within just a few years. I wanted to spend a good amount of time visiting
the state I was in and exploring places that I had previously only seen on
TV. What happened was that I ended up
wanting to complete the goal without truly appreciating the process. Instead of looking at completion of each
state as a separate part of the goal, I took on the whole goal as one item.
Early in
the journey, I planned for specific places to visit in each state and looked
for the best places to eat. I tried to find something unique about each state
and took my time with the planning. So
many aspects of my journey changed once I met more people who were on a similar
schedule. I then changed my goals to
meet up with others who were achieving great things. I strayed from my own plans and drifted into
the realm of doing what others were doing. I think this is the first step that
led me astray. I used to enjoy traveling
alone, making unique plans that simply catered to what I wanted to do. Once I began to involve others in my plans,
and tried to mimic their goals, it took away from what I was doing for myself.
I
realized that I felt the most happiness when I took time to explore unique
places, and when I finished with a fast time.
I loved taking pictures of wildlife, checking out the roadside
attractions, monuments, or museums. Taking the time to do all those things is
nearly impossible if your goal is to get in and out of as many states as
possible within a short amount of time.
Your plans change so that you spend less money on hotels and
flights. If you’re anything like me, you
hate spending time in limbo, so you are willing to spend more to have less
travel time. This was especially tricky
for me since I am frugal, but also impatient.
Don’t get
me wrong, I love and truly cherish the new friendships that I’ve made in the
process. I now have a solid group of friends
who support my crazy ideas, and keep me on track. We have shared many hotel rooms, rental cars,
meals and flights. There’s nothing I regret
about creating those bonds. Looking
back, the races in which I had the least amount of fun (after I met friends)
were the ones in which I traveled alone.
I think the purpose of the trip changed so dramatically from my original
goal that there wasn’t anything left for me to enjoy. I had a very short trip, didn’t take time to
sight-see, and ran a slow race, all by myself.
From this 50 states journey, I learned that to keep enjoying
the sport that you love, you must:
-determine why you started in the first place
-stay true to yourself throughout the process
-If your goals change, be sure to include the reason why you
started as a central element
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