Running is Horrible. Here’s Why I Love it.

I didn’t start running because I loved running. Far from it. In fact, I never even considered running as a “thing” because, honestly, I mostly hated it.

I never really saw the point in a hobby that felt repetitive, slow compared to riding bikes, and, let’s be honest, like a suffer-fest from start to finish. I was convinced that people who talked about the mythical “runner’s high” were simply trying to lure other people into suffering alongside them. Misery loves company, right?

So now, sitting here having completed three marathons in twelve months, starting from absolutely nothing, I feel like I have some explaining to do…

Running was never my thing. Bikes were. For years, I loved riding my bike over everything else, while running sat firmly in the category of “once-a-year-for-the-lols” activity. Let’s face it, running is harder, more repetitive, and far less forgiving than cycling, so choosing to run instead of ride wasn’t some natural athletic evolution. It was a practical decision more than anything else.

I didn’t ride at all during pregnancy. I was ill, uncomfortable, and slowly lost confidence in what I felt my body could and couldn’t do. I completely lost my mojo. Then postpartum arrived, instead of desperately wanting to get back on the bike, I mostly felt disconnected from myself while trying to navigate this entirely new body and lifestyle. But I knew that I needed something that was just for me.

I wanted to reclaim some fitness. To find something that gave me structure, something to focus on, and perhaps most of all, a bit of space and identity outside of the newborn haze. So, in amongst the chaos, I started running.

Well, calling it “running” is generous.

It was more like an aggressive march or power plod, and only for a couple of kilometres at a time. I hated every step, but I kept telling myself that I needed this and that eventually it would get easier, even if just a little. I tried to embody the super mantra of Phily Bowden, “love the grind”, which felt deeply irritating at the time, but annoyingly accurate in hindsight.

What surprised me most was how practical running actually was. I didn’t need loads of kit, I didn’t need to drive anywhere, and even thirty minutes of determined plodding gave me more mentally and physically than thirty minutes on the bike could have at that point in my life.

I walked when I needed to, stopped when I had to, and slowly started moving my body consistently again. Looking back, I think it really helped rebuild the bond with my body after feeling disconnected from it for so long.

But while I kept chipping away at it, my motivation had a tendency to waver. I realised I needed a goal, something concrete to work towards, rather than just aimlessly jogging around the block hoping to magically become a much fitter and faster version of myself.

Then came the London Marathon.

I was watching it on TV while my eleven-month-old bounced around on the floor beside me when I decided, slightly impulsively, to sign up. I didn’t get in through the ballot, but I was lucky enough to get a charity place with Refuge, which suddenly made the whole thing feel very real.

Once I had an event on the calendar, I threw myself into training completely. Week by week, I built up distance, speed, confidence, and knowledge, all at the same time. I learnt a lot about my postpartum body during those months, where my weaknesses were, where my strengths still existed, and how much self-discipline running demands from you.

And the funny thing is, I still didn’t experience the famous “runner’s high” during the runs themselves. It always came afterwards.

It was more like relief mixed with pride. Relief that the run was over, pride that I’d done it anyway. Maybe that’s my version of a runner’s high; less euphoric enlightenment, more “that was awful, but I’m weirdly pleased with myself”.

Over time, my pace improved, I could run longer without stopping, and I slowly realised that the difficulty was actually the appeal. The challenge, the tiny grains of progress, and the feeling of doing something purely for myself became strangely addictive. It gave me a sense of achievement that felt very different to riding bikes.

Somewhere in the middle of all that training and self-discovery, I also learned about the Abbott World Marathon Majors and discovered that London was one of the seven races needed to complete the series. In what I can only describe as a moment of pure delusion and masochistic optimism, I entered the ballot for the Berlin Marathon. And somehow, I got in.

Considering how difficult those ballots are to “win”, I was genuinely shocked, but also excited because it meant the training momentum would continue beyond London.

Now, London itself didn’t exactly go to plan. To find out why, you’ll have to watch the YouTube video. But afterwards, I had another five months to train for Berlin, and I wanted to give this one everything I had. I got a coach, started strength training properly for the first time in my life, and became far more mindful about how I was fuelling myself and recovering.

Then, while I was actually in Berlin for that marathon, I found out that my ballot entry for the Tokyo Marathon had also been accepted. It was a very real “WTAF” moment.

These races are notoriously difficult to get into, and somehow, I’d managed to land places in three World Majors within twelve months.

At the Berlin Marathon, I took almost fifty minutes off my London time, finishing in 5:48:00. Considering I nearly ended up with a DNS after the build-up I had, it felt huge. You can also watch that video you YouTube.

Unfortunately, the wheels fell off a bit over winter. A recurring back problem stopped me running and gym’ing, and, for months, the only thing I could really manage consistently was Zwift. And, I did a lot of Zwift. I even did the Rapha 500 over 5 days, which was pretty big for me.

So with a terrible winter training block, I headed into Tokyo feeling underprepared both physically and mentally. But with everything booked and paid for, and knowing how lucky I was to even have a place, I decided to go anyway and just see what happened. I always say, a DNF is better than a DNS.

To this day, I still don’t fully understand how it happened, but I somehow ran another PB, finishing more than thirty minutes faster than Berlin in a time of 5:17:00.

So now, here I am, training for my fourth World Major Marathon, the Chicago Marathon later this year, and I’m going into this one with more focus, more experience, and a lot more belief in myself than I had when I started.

I tell myself that I’m not chasing a specific time, but of course, I want to do better than last time… even if by a little.

And despite the fact that running is still hard, and still occasionally feels terrible while I’m doing it, there’s something deeply rewarding about its simplicity and difficulty that keeps pulling me back. Which is slightly annoying, really.