Episode 21: Starting Again Without Starting Over

Even so, there's one thought that still sneaks into my head almost every year.

And that's, I wonder where my fitness is now.

Then I stop for a moment and ask myself if this actually makes sense.

I mean, I've been running for years.

Am I really going to lose all of that because I had a few weeks where life looked a little different? Of course not.

We're simply not that fragile.

A few weeks with a little less running doesn't wipe away everything we've spent months and years building.

If you haven't been running at all during vacation...

Well, the first run back might feel a little awkward, and it may take a week or two before anything feels familiar again, but that's not the same as starting over.

I think that's where we sometimes fool ourselves.

We tell ourselves we've lost everything, and once we believe that story, we start acting as though it's true.

We rush back into training, trying to make up for missed workouts, and put pressure on ourselves that doesn't really need to be there.

I've done exactly the same thing.

These days, I try to remind myself that I'm not starting from zero.

I'm simply finding my rhythm again.

And when I think about it like that, I approach those first weeks very differently.

There's no panic, no guilt, no feeling that I have to catch up.

Just a quiet confidence that the work I've already done is still there and all I need to do is wake it up again.

That's really what's been on my mind lately.

And not how quickly we can get fit again, but how we come back in a way that lets us enjoy the rest of the season instead of spending the first few weeks chasing something that probably never disappeared in the first place.

Because after a summer holiday, I honestly don't think we're starting over.

I think we're simply picking up where we left off.