It’s the same question everyone asks. How did you get into running? As soon as I say I’ve been running most of my life, their reply is… ‘I wish my parents forced me into a sport when I was young’. This is NOT the case. My parents never pushed me into taking up running. They weren’t those typical pushy parents who wanted their children to excel at everything. If anything, they were always encouraging me to rest rather than train. Something that continues to annoy me to the day. I think it’s the starting young that makes the repetitive nature of training seem like everyday life.
For as long as I can remember, training has been part of my everyday life. It has to be done. It doesn’t matter what you have to do in the day, or where you are going, it has to be fitted in. This isn’t and doesn’t have to be the case for every runner though. Not everyone had the opportunities when they were young to get into the sport. Whether you take it up at the age of 6 or at the age of 30, there is one thing all runners have in common, and that is the love of the sport. You have to love it to be able to get up at 6AM on a cold wintery day, layer on your clothes, lace up your trainers, and head out for a run. Its these tough days, that make the easy ones all the more enjoyable. You have to go through the dark, mentally tough downs, in order to appreciate the easy ups. It’s the reasons you run that make you push through these times, and value what you are doing. No matter how long you have been running for, if you love what you do and are willing to put in the hard work, you deserve the good results you get. All runners respect other runners, for they are committed and dedicated to their sport. You don’t have to be dedicated to training every day, every runner has a different goal and this determines what you put in. Some people just want to run on sunny days to enjoy the scenery, others want to lose weight or stay fit, and others, like me, have ambitions to achieve as high level as they can within their field. It is all these different motives that make running such a versatile and interesting sport. Any runner you speak to has an interesting story to tell as to why they started and what they want to achieve. Some want to tick running a marathon off their bucket list, and once this has been done, they have no burning desire to return to a strict training regime. And if this is what they choose, then that’s absolutely fine! Personally, for me, running is in my daily schedule for all the foreseeable future. Until the day I can no longer physically run, I will continue to train as hard as I can to achieve what I can. Since the day I started, I was in it for the ‘long run’. So, what makes you want to run?
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Hannah IrwinI love to run and I love to write, so I write about running! Archives
March 2023
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