Has anyone ever had to deal with negative associations with running?
I'm gradually recovering from what turned out just to be low Vitamin D but it had really knocked the stuffing out of my running. Thankfully I no longer have the symptoms that I did (muscle pain and fatigue, bone pain, periodontal pain and low mood) and it's now about building my fitness back up.
But it's the mental side I'm struggling with and I'm wondering if anyone here can relate or advise...
Because things had been so bad for a while, I now seem to have negative associations and expectations (like PTSD, I suppose, but not so serious!). Too many terrible runs, a sense of failure at having to pull out of events I'd registered for and - ridiculously - the feeling that everyone else who runs was going from strength to strength and PB to PB while I was getting worse and worse. I now really struggle to persuade myself to go for a run because I imagine it's going to be horrible. Often I just don't go, sometimes even though I've got dressed ready to run.
If I go out on my own I am inclined to give up when it gets hard. Parkrun is good because I don't want to pull out in front of everyone. I managed it on Saturday with a wee walk in the middle and although it was hard, I did get the good old endorphins afterwards and felt good the rest of the day.
I realise that this all sounds a bit whiney. I am VERY happy to have had a diagnosis and to be recovering. I'm just interested to know if anyone has had to deal with similar feelings.
Written by
AnneDroid
Graduate10
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
After posting the above, I had a talk to myself, put my big girls drawers on (under my running gear) then out I went. Ran 10 minutes then walked 3, ran another 10 then "jeffed" 60/30 for another 30 minutes.................... YAY!!!!! feel so much better already. Thanks AnneDroid. Helps knowing you're not the only one struggling.
You are not alone.... I too have been diagnosed with a very low vit D having been referred to a neaurologist with problems. I think that it did effect my running as I struggled. However I have put PB's to one side and I will only sign up to 1 race a year ( nerves, the build up, training etc...) and I run for my mental health mostly because it keeps me sane. I see it as going on an adventure each day and i look forward to exploring. I have a mentor at work who has been helping me with my confidance and one thing she told me to do before a tricky meeting is to visualise- see myself as confidant, professional, articulate and self talk. I also have applied this to my runs.... the night before I see myself running, no pain, no problems, its beautiful, I feel the air on my face and all is well. You know what- it works.
Can you go out for just a mile, somewhere you love, no pressure? build up, and you know what, its OK to walk too ( I do alot)..... well done on keeping going with parkrun... hang in there
Signing up for one race a year and the rest is because you want to it exactly how I feel about it ... I run because I want to and the pressure of 'having' to cover certain distances as you're on a schedule rather than just doing what you want on good or less good days and going as far as you can possibly get on a day when its feeling great is how I now approach things. Life is hard enough without making something so positive an additional stress. I suffer from B12 deficiency and have 3 monthly injections for life ... I'm often late with them as I'm a bit rubbish at prioritising myself over work and running a home etc and I really feel it in my running and everywhere else so the other thing I need to incorporate is remembering to look after me too! Here's to continued recovery for you all x
Maybe you are being too hard on yourself - you say you are not experiencing the original symptoms but perhaps that *is* just what is going on for you still for a wee while yet. (Also could be that those levels need another check?)
Maybe talking about the negative feelings is a positive sign (like the way you write about Saturday's run), getting it on the screen being the next step to getting rid.
It sounds as though you have some good strategies in place to combat this - recognising that a Parkrun helps you.
Thank you GoogleMe. Yes, I think talking about it has already been helpful. Getting it out there into cyberspace to this supportive community has felt good!
I don't have any advice but just wanted to say I hope you can find a way of gradually working through it and rediscovering your love of running. Parkrun and "jeffing" sound like a good start, maybe with a conscious effort not to think about Pubs and all that. Also regular monitoring of your vit D levels would seem wise.
Btw, I first misread that you had stopped for a "wee" in the middle of your Parkrun! I imagined you dropping your drawers in front of all the other runners. Was quite relieved to discover my mistake 😆
Haha! That made me laugh. No wee-ing during parkrun thankfully, or indeed thinking about pubs. Bit early in the morning... I WAS thinking about coffee and a scrambled egg roll in the coffee afterwards though!
Sorry to hear you’ve been unwell. Hopefully you are on the up! 💪👍🏃♀️
Having probs with your vitamin levels will have caused you various problems so no wonder your mood has been low. I think being unwell and not being able to do the things you want to do is isolating. When I was injured I didn’t want to see another runner
I kept coming on here though, which I’m sure helped me. Getting a definitive diagnosis and starting treatment gives you a boost. Being involved in your own way back to health helps your positivity, and you start feeling much better in your mind as you see your help picking up
Good luck with your recovery. I hope you’ll soon be firing on all cylinders 💪👍🙂🏃♀️
Here in Finland the late autumn-winter darkness means lots of people take massive Vit D suppliments and use light boxes to guard against Seasonal Affective Disorder. I take a general multi Vit and a Vit D (5000 IU) daily dose too until the sun comes back.
That's interesting Lordi. You are even further north than I am in Perth in Scotland. On the other hand we have the lovely long summer nights which are the up side of living in the north.
Deep down my body must have known what was the matter with it because I was craving sun (even to the very silly extent of watching any television programs that were set somewhere sunny!) and also craving eggs, which have vitamin D in them. I had a Scotch egg addiction for a while.
Apparently, as we age some people's capacity for absorbing Vitamin D from their diet reduces. So that can be another factor.
I have been pondering this again as my son had to take certain medicines for several years to control epilepsy (thankfully no longer, and with no ill effect) which unfortunately inhibited absorption of iron and despite supplements he was often borderline anaemic. It hasn't been easy to get him back into sport as he too associated it with sheer hard work and feeling bad, and not being able to keep up with others.
He started playing basketball and that shook things up - being tall he has an advantage and he loves the recognition and the social side. Perhaps it's a question of replacing the negatives with positives - that scrambled egg roll and coffee after a run, perhaps running socially when you feel like it, planning fun routes, and being kind to yourself, focusing on the adventure rather than races, pace, PBs etc.
Interesting. Your son's done well to turn things around - I'm inspired.
The social thing is good, definitely. I miss going out with my running club (I can't manage the distance at the moment) because the chat and the friendship making/building were great. But I still have the after parkrun branch which is indeed fab.
Another one who had problems with Vit D. Maybe taking yourself off somewhere really nice(and new) for a run so there are no previous connotations. New playlist/podcast that you really like. Do you think redoing the last few weeks of the programme would help- may get a sense of achievement from finishing again. I feel sure it will come right - hope that's soon for you.
Vit D deficiency is a vastly under diagnosed condition. Glad you are aware of it. Low iron is something I'm looking into also.
PTSD - you sure as hell don't have to be a Vietnam Vet to have it. Knowing you have it is, I'm convinced through bitter experience, 90% of dealing with it positively.
Competitiveness - that can, when not harnessed in a healthy manner, complete the triangle which drags people down and under.
What helps me is realising that I can all too easily let my mind drift and my thoughts can make me oblivious to the moment+by-moment reality that is occurring.
When I snap out of it on runs for instance I realise that given my age and physical condition plus health and lifestyle history...on a certain level my struggling 5k is equally as impressive as a "less battered and banjaxed" younger guys ultra Marathon 🤔
We tend to compare ourselves to others unfavourably 🙂 Turn that around and suddenly you don't seem all that much of a wreck ☺
Honest to God - I never dreamed I would get to the end of w4 when I started. W3 seemed 'possible maybe sometime' but NEVER the whole gig I honeslty used to look at one of the markers in the distance and think how bloody marvelous it would be to be able to run that far.
3/10ths of a mile LOL
BTW - there is a chart out there somewhere that adjusts your speed to your age. I cannot find it unfortunately but I remember that last year my aged 57 33:40 5K was comparable to "a statistically average healthy runner of 27"
Kind of throws a whole new light on how well we are actually doing
Many of us are struggling at the moment. I'm not feeling the love, have a number of niggles and haven't been anywhere near a PB since the summer. I also feel very envious when I see other runners and find it difficult to read all the success stories on here (miserable git, aren't I?) when I'm not running as I want. When I'm miserable I do tend to isolate myself, which is really the worst thing I can do. But I try to take a step back and be objective - I'm still running, pretty much 4x a week. That is pretty amazing when you think about it. Last Sunday I ran my first 10k non-stop for a long while. Wow, I can run 10K, that is a long way. And I didn't drop dead, my legs didn't fall off, I wasn't even particularly achey. How many of my colleagues can say that (well, quite a few actually!). What I'm trying to say is that sometimes we're our own worst enemy and need to be less competitive. We need to learn to just run!
Remember low Vitamin D takes a long time to recover from - weeks/months not days to get your levels back up again, even if you take a daily supplement. I was advised to take it with a fish oil tablet to improve absorption (it is a fat soluble vitamin). Also I urge everyone to switch to whole milk if you don't already use it. As skimmed milk contains next to no fat, it is a rubbish source of Vitamin D. The calorie increase is trivial over a whole day's calorific intake.
That sounds sucky , but hopefully things'll improve now.
I can't say I have negative associations with running but to much sh*te weather, a virus that lingered and a major life change meant I didn't run for a couple of months. I'm getting back into it with one mile runs - I did my second this morning. No expectations about speed or anything else and I stop when the mile is done, even if I feel I could do more - I'm going to keep doing this for a while - the mental health benefits are almost as good as on longer runs, it doesn't take so much out of my day and I feel like I'm re-installing a discipline, which I've really missed and which I know, now, really helps me manage change...
Mmmm... manageable at least! (running definitely makes it easier)
Sorry to hear you have been unwell AnneDroid
I wrote a post recently about why running feels addictive- that good runs reinforce the behaviour and make us want to do more, basically. The opposite is also true, if you have negative experiences all the time the desire to run becomes extinguished. Feeling negative and gloomy maybe a hang over from the vitamin D deficiency as well of course.
So my advice would be to build achievements, start with small goals and lots of positive self-talk and self congratulations when you complete.
You will soon turn things around and the negative associations will be replaced with positive ones once more. Take care!
Thanks Helen. Yes, I think I got into a vicious circle. I'm sure you're right that getting into a positive frame of mind will come in time.
I totally get where you are coming from.every time i get run down it affects my runs & i become very negative about the whole thing & it then affects my whole mentallity towards it.i think its because alot of what we are trying to do is a mental challenge...last week i wasnt feeling well & kept having to stop & walk.i immediately started thinking how rubbish i am & how i am not progressing!!!
Try & focus on the fact that it is NOT your ability to run & things will get much better very soon.if you have to stop & walk then its fine...just be very kind to yourself xx
I'm feeling like that at the mo. Stuck in a rut, can't get up in the morning, not improving time wise, niggly injury that isn't clearing up...any run I do feels too damn hard.... all led to only doing 2 runs in 2 weeks (one I forced myself to do for some bling) not me at all!
I'm always battling with 'should be doing better, faster, longer' which normally I can rationally bin off and be content with the fact I can now run, having never been able to. But sometimes it just grabs hold of us and sinks its teeth in. It seems to have be a LONG winter this year and I'm down South, so I can only imagine how tough it's been in Scotland. It's also the first year I've really felt affected/connected to the seasons....
I'm joining the gym with my daughter to try and get stronger and lose weight. I never would have considered this if it weren't for running giving me the confidence.... funny what it gives and takes from us. I'm hoping that this will help rekindle my running crush. That and Spring when it decides to turn up!
Thanks for posting, it's given me the kick up the a*se I needed - I'm gonna run for both of us tomorrow Anne, come hell or high-water!!
Thank you for sharing this - ‘a problem shared...’ and all that really does help. I know exactly what you are going though as the same is happening to me. The support and advice this forum is amazing . I discovered running last year and it literally changed my life but things started going wrong in December....getting slower and slower and not feeling right. The vit D deficiency was diagnosed following blood tests as a result of going to the doctors with strange bruising on my thighs (still not sure if their is related or not). Other setbacks like my Achilles and recent cellulitis hasn’t helped me in tying to get my mojo back. I can’t believe how much my fitness and enthusiasm has slipped. I was up to about 15-20k per week in late summer, but that seems a very distant memory 🙁 I’m struggling to run for 5 mins at the moment let all be 5k. Park Run is a saviour - I volunteer as a Marshall when my Achilles is too painful so at least I feel lucky ke I’m doing something.
I’d be happy to be your ‘virtual training buddy’ if you like - we can try to get our mojo back 😊
Not long til the clocks go forward now and hopefully increased vitamin D 👍🏼
Sorry to hear you've had all this to contend with. We can get it back though! Look at all these amazing comments above... 2018 will be our year. Hopefully.
And the beauty of it is that you have running as part of the recovery process. There is no rush.
It’s been a long hard winter for all of us here, and that’s without the health problems you’ve had. Recently I find myself tempted to put off running because I cant face yet another cold wet run. But you got the high with the last run, so you are definitely getting better. If you can only get yourself out of the door, you may find the lift in mood from running increasinly motivates you. I think you are amazing to still be running at all after what you e been going through x
Thank you! I don't feel very amazing but that is so kind. And, yes, the post-run high after the last run is certainly an encouraging sign. I'm off tomorrow so no excuses...
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
I managed it on Saturday with a wee walk in the middle and although it was hard, I did get the good old endorphins afterwards and felt good the rest of the day. 
Started new running course, helped my parkrun!
Running with water??
Running with back pain
Running Resolution
Running slower tips
