My plan changed after my "quit early" performance in the 24 hour race at 3 Days at the Fair (3DATF) in May 2019. I don't think I know how to explain what has happened, but I am pretty sure it was more in my mind than anywhere else.
During 3DATF I became uninterested in continuing the race. I was physically uncomfortable sooner than I had expected even though my body was working OK and my miles were adding up well enough. But I didn't try much to correct this problem; I simply gave it some time to go away. When my motivation problem didn't go away and my discomfort remained, I just decided to drop out. I had completed 45 miles, about 20 miles of which were recorded during my period of deciding whether to continue for the entire 24 hours. I just quit and went to sleep.
The "I don't feel like it" attitude was a new one for me and it shook my commitment to training for other long events. Without this commitment I decided not to register for any race until I had gotten back my "want to". And my training dropped off to less than half the running than needed to prepare for even a marathon. Many weeks I managed only 2 runs.
A puzzling thing for me has been that at the beginning of the day my motivation was weakest. But by late morning and continuing through the end of the day, I felt like I wanted to train for and enter races. At bedtime each day I would set my alarm to get up early and run. By morning I was again feeling more like sleeping than running. If I didn't have arrangements to meet friends to run, I usually reset my alarm and slept later. I have hoped to run some local races where I would see friends who are still in the game. In particular, a July 4th 5k and a 5 mile race a month later fell to the wayside just like most of my planned morning runs.
I have been more achy and was breathing harder in training runs, but that seems normal considering my sporadic, low mileage training. I wondered if some physical issue was to blame.
Finally, I think I am coming out of this slump. The run enthusiasm of local friends is rubbing off on me. I am wanting to be a disciplined and committed runner. I am back to thinking about the races I can prepare for later in the year. In the previous 2 weeks I have run 11 of 14 days. I have done a speed work session in each of these past 2 weeks. And I ran again today.
It seems to come down to the popular saying:
