Maintenance Runs

The drudgery; the boredom; the reasons why

Winter runs in GA: brown and chilly. 2017.

Winter. My season for maintenance runs. Because my running year is seasonal, and because those seasons are based on my competitive career, winter has always been a downtime for me. I trudge through maintenance runs, and I try to find joy in dialing back my competitiveness with myself, but I don’t love them. So why do them, you might ask? Because maintaining a certain middling level of fitness is worth it once your next season ramps up. Here’s how it plays out, if you don’t take a downseason:

Scenario 1: You keep training until you hit a wall

When I first moved to southern california from the northeast, I slide right from fall training into winter. I was jamming through miles and workouts on my newfound routes and loving life. I was going to running clubs to meet people and not entirely disliking them. And then February rolled around.  

As the days got longer, I found myself disengaged from running. I would go through workouts, but not really connect. I felt an existential crisis coming on: was I falling out of love with running? I tried changing my routes; I dialed back from running clubs to get out of deadlines and create space. I still felt listless. Then, it hit me: I’d been running at roughly the same level of intensity for about 8 months in a row. There was no dynamism to it! I was just going going going, and, since I don’t race, I had no punctuation to my training runs at all! 

So I eased off training for about four or six weeks and then started ramping up again. It worked! I felt energized and engaged again. Turns out, I just needed to pump the brakes a little. 

Scenario 2: You take time off and befriend despair

I’ve only ever voluntarily taken time off once in 34 years. It was for three months one winter around 2008, and I did it as an experiment. I was busy, living in Brooklyn, playing in bands, and working on fashion sets. I was building my creative career and needed to be out and about as much as possible. I thought to myself: what if I took these months off? I’ll get a little out of shape but I’m sure it won’t be terrible.

What would it be like to be like other people, and just hang out after work? What do people who don’t go home and run every day do? What are their lives like?

My winter runs are always terrible anyway, and if I skipped them I could go out for drinks and to dinner right after work, like everyone else. I could up my networking and become more part of the scene. I could see what it’s like to be like other people, and not run every day. 

So I took the winter off, to see what the drinks-and-dinner-immediately-after-work-life had to offer. Dear reader, I loathed it. 

Over the course of the three months, I found myself feeling more tired and dreary as the gray days followed each other, one after the other. I found myself feeling blobby and unstructured. I found myself laying facedown on my bed at 6:30 pm, having no intention of moving for the rest of the evening.

Dear reader: I hated it. 

As the crocuses started emerging from the parks’ mushy soil, I started running again. It was tough; I was out of shape! More out of shape than I had ever gotten just doing maintenance runs. Not just my cardiovascular, but also my muscles themselves, which surprised me. I hadn’t thought that I wouldn’t lose that much in 90 days. Most surprising, though, was that while my body would still move just as it always had, I lost mental focus a lot more quickly than I ever had before.  

It took me a long eight weeks to get back. I did not find the experience worth it. Yes, dipping out of social events and checking the clock on set to see when I could leave were not exactly ways to make my career drive forward, but I just couldn’t handle sliding from day into night with no run in there, even in the dead of winter. 

Conclusion

So, maintenance runs: they’re worth it. They’re not glamorous; they’re not even particularly fun, but they’re worth it if you want to emerge from your downseason(s) with your ready-to-run mind and body intact. That’s where I am right now in my year, and I’m getting through. If that’s where you are too, focus on what’s to come when the days get longer again. So for now, even when it’s dark and cold, remember: go run.