“If you haven’t thought about quitting yet, you aren’t going hard enough.”

I repeated that quote over and over in my head no Monday morning during my hill workout. Have you ever had one of those workouts where the moment you see it on your schedule and you automatically dread it? The last time I attempted this workout 3 weeks ago it was a rough day and I quickly found myself wishing I had any other workout on my schedule that morning.

I tried to keep an open mind and headed downstairs with E to start the workout. The good thing about racing a little one’s nap during your run is that you don’t have time to sit around and think about your run. The moment I step on the treadmill I push go.

I did my warm up and tried to ease into the workout. The first one was tough but not awful; however, as they kept going I started to really have to work for it. Working for it is good, but it can also be exhausting especially when you are running on less sleep. I am not ashamed to say that during this workout I felt like quitting. All those little bits of self doubt slipped back in and I started questioning why I was doing this. Then, just like that the workout ended. I survived and I realized that yes it’s completely okay to feel like quitting. 

When we run we strive to better ourselves. We work to improve and the only way we can improve is to push our bodies to do something that it has never done before. Whether it be a long run, tempo, or workout these are all new attempts to train our bodies to work harder, go further, or get faster.

It’s not easy to get out there every day. It isn’t easy to make time every day, if it was everyone would be doing it. It takes sacrifice, it takes determination, and some days it takes pure grit. You aren’t going to always have a runners high, in fact I would say I only get that after about 50% of my runs. Some days I’m just glad my run is over with even when I do love running the way I do.

There hasn’t been a training cycle that I haven’t thought about quitting once, twice, or even several times. The days when my body is tired and I just want to throw in the towel. I think those days teach us something. They help strengthen us for those last miles of our race. The miles that hurt and once again we feel like quitting. It’s in those miles were I think back on my training and think about all the times I was able to push through. I know if I did it then, I can do it now.

So, my point of this long and drawn out post is that it’s perfect OKAY to think about quitting. It doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t mean you are dedicated, and it doesn’t mean you don’t love what you’re doing. It just means you are pushing your body through something it’s never done before and that is often a painful process at times. It means that you are getting stronger and it means that you are in fact human.

I will promise you one thing though – if you push through those days you feel like quitting you will be infinitely stronger because of it. You will gain more from these days then you do from even the best ones!