A hard admission

I only started this blog a few weeks ago, but something fairly major has changed since then. When I started running was one of the most important things in my life and my goal of running the Cape to Cabot was uppermost in my thoughts. If you've been reading through, you may have noticed I stopped writing about running, or only mentioned it in passing. The reason for this was that I was grappling with myself, slowly coming to terms with the fact that I had been too ambitious and set a goal I wasn't ready for.

The workouts began to overwhelm me. They took everything I had, and it took me too long to recover from them. I started to dread them. There have been plenty of times that I've had to force myself to run, but this was different. Running had lost it's joy. I tried to push myself forward anyway. I told myself that it wouldn't be a challenge if it wasn't hard, and that if I just got through I would feel much better.

But that simply isn't the case. Last night my father and I had a long talk. We went over the runs I had done, how I felt, and what my expectations were. The conclusion was obvious. I would probably be able to finish the race, but it wouldn't be a good run. I may have had to walk parts and I was risking injury. It was a hard thing to decide. I've been telling people for 9 months that I was going to do this, and I've got a lot of pride. But I want to recapture running. To enjoy it and do it for fun again. I'm worried that doing this race now would ruin that. So I'm leaving it to next year.