Years ago I stopped running.
Seems like it was maybe a couple years ago, but really, I haven’t run in six years or more. I’m definitely on the downward slope of the hill of life, gaining momentum, where time seems to have completely changed speeds.
I used to run to get my butt out the door. I ran for fitness. I ran to stay light for climbing. I thought running did a lot for my climbing fitness until I injured myself a little bit while climbing and then the running made that injury a lot worse and chronic. That injury wouldn’t go away, but I managed it, which means, I kept running and climbing and taking a lot of ibuprofen while avoiding things that noticeably hurt the injury. Running didn’t hurt me in the moment of actual activity. I had chronic, niggling injuries like this most of the time back then when I used to run. It was just what I was used to.
Then I hurt my shoulder, and you’d be surprised how uncomfortable running becomes, how awful, when you have a labrum tear in your shoulder joint. Every step I took running jostled the joint and gave me such a feeling of weird discomfort if not outright pain. The weird discomfort/pain was so weird that it made me sick to my stomach to feel it. And my shoulder injury hurting while I ran just felt so wrong, so much more wrong than my hamstrings or my knees hurting while I ran. So that is when I quit running. That was in 2016.
Because of my injury and researching what to do about it— surgery vs. no surgery— I read a lot about what is the best way to train and stay healthy for climbing. Oh, and I should mention that in 2016, I turned 43. So I was also finding training information specific for older climbers. One of the things I read in the process was that running wasn’t a good training tool for climbing. Running and climbing are too different for one to benefit the other. I should also mention that I hated running. Hated. Loathed. Despised. Even though I spent years and years doing it and some of the time trying to get better at it, I hated it and did not ever improve. So when I read that running for the sake of climbing is not really a thing, I latched onto that idea and still am clutching it tightly in my old lady claw-like fingers. Thank you to the person (SB at CS) who showed me that I could give up running and not feel bad about it. (I’m an obsessive type.) Thank you SB at CS. I and my hamstrings are forever in your debt.
So what happened when I stopped running? I felt huge relief and my hamstrings, the real chronic problem, loosened up and let go of all their tightness and pain. When I stopped running, so many chronic problems went away. When I stopped running, all of my athletic energy could go towards getting better at climbing. I had so much more energy to climb. When I stopped running, I wasn’t completely exhausted all the time. When I stopped running, I wasn’t ravenously hungry every waking minute of the day.
When I stopped running, I finally felt completely free to heckle every single person I saw out there running while I wasn’t anymore. Ha, suckers! Yes, I do say this out loud in the car every time I see a runner. Ask my husband or my kids.
If you are a climber and love running, ignore me. If you think running helps you with climbing, more power to you. There is training advice out there to contradict what I have written here. I’m only saying that for me, getting rid of the running definitely helped with my climbing. Honestly, I’m a little jealous of people who have a love for running and the feeling it gives them. I’m just heckling you all out of insecurity. You can tell yourself that if you happen to hear me.
However, I am noticing something else. I am noticing that without running it is really hard to find a reason to be outside on any given day of the week. I am reminded that one of the reasons I ran was to enjoy the outdoors around my home. I ran because it helped me breathe in (somewhat) fresh air. It helped me move my body instead of just being stuck inside all the time, mainly in the winter. I forgot that the reason I ran outside in the wintertime was to play in the snow (when there was snow). Running was my adult playtime when I couldn’t go climbing outside. When I stopped running, I lost that sense of using my body for play.
There is a special kind of joy that you get when you go running outside on a cold, dark, gray day and see the warm light coming from the windows of the houses you pass by. It makes you appreciate how your body is moving and keeping warm, and it also gives you a greater sense of appreciation when you return to the warmly-lighted indoors of your own home when you return. We have been having many gray, very dark days this winter. It’s Pittsburgh.
I kind of miss running, but not enough to start again. I don’t think, anyway.
