The 79th Edition

Some days you float through a run feeling light, strong, and capable. Other days, everything feels heavy before you’ve even left the front door.

Something to Think About

Progress isn’t just built on the great days, it’s built on the accumulation of ordinary ones.

Something to Ask Yourself

How do you feel about yourself when you weren’t at your best? Do you talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend?

Personal Lesson

I can’t tell you how many runs, workouts, and days in my life where I’ve felt flat. Like I just don’t have it.

Earlier in my running life, those days used to bother me. I’d read into them too much. I’d question my fitness, my training, and very often I’d question my motivation. Sometimes even letting that run question whether I even liked running at all. One bad session could spiral into a story about decline, failure and lack of interest if I let it.

Over time, I’ve learned to see them differently. These runs, the ones where you just don’t feel like yourself. The ones where, for whatever reason, you feel like you’ve regressed. They’re inevitable. They will always happen from time to time. And they still count. They still go in the bank. They’re just part of the numbers game. When you zoom out far enough, they barely register – but without them, the bigger picture never comes together.

Running – Life’s Metaphor

This is an easy one! Running teaches you that consistency beats intensity, and effort matters more than mood. Life works the same way – you don’t wait to feel perfect before acting, you act and let the feelings catch up later.

Final Thoughts

There will be days where you’ll feel strong and motivated. You’ll be moving well, appreciating your surroundings and maybe even wonder why everyone doesn’t love this running stuff as much as you do. Other days, you’ll feel slow, heavy, uncoordinated, and quietly annoyed all this work you’re putting in feels like a waste of time. You’ll think, “do I even like running?”

Both are normal.

The mistake is thinking the good days matter more. They don’t. In fact, in some ways they matter less. They’re just louder. It’s the quieter days, the days that suck, and the ones you finish without fanfare. They are doing just as much work, and often mentally offering more, behind the scenes.

I go on a lot about how much running can teach us. I even have a “life metaphor” section in this very newsletter (which, I fully recognise can be tenuous depending on the subject of the week). But there is no greater life lesson from running than this.

Some days, you will not feel yourself. You will feel incapable, unenergised, unmotivated, and sluggish. On those days, you may interact with people who feel the opposite. They’re “on it” feeling good, motivated, energised, sharp, and well-slept. It’s important to remember that no one day is representative of you as a whole. You may compare yourself to others on those days. You may feel overly negative about yourself on those days. This is all normal.

But you must remember to zoom out. Keep showing up. Value discipline over mood. Be kind to yourself. And remember to praise the effort over everything else.

Thanks for reading and subscribing!

Run the runnable, and keep showing up for yourself.

Tommy 🙂