Yep it’s true, I’m hanging up the cape and utility belt. When your support at home finally ends for the running you do rather than continue limping on with it I think I’d rather bow out now.
My partner has slowly but surely been reducing her support for my running both in training and racing terms over the last year and so I finally put my hands up and say ‘you’ve won – sort of’.
Why ‘sort of’? Well the answer to that is easy because you don’t know what’s going to happen when I stop running. It’s a bit like Brexit – it won’t all be plain sailing.
So I retire, effective immediate – no High Weald 50km, no Haria Extreme, no more RunCommute.
The challenging thing is what to do now? I don’t have any other real hobbies and running greatly aided both my physical and mental wellbeing, I’m not sure how to replace that – will I just go back to being uber angry and decidedly unfit?
The sad thing is that the mental wellbeing will probably be the first to deteriorate and might remind me how little I wanted to be a parent or how unfocused on my career and work I have been for example. Retiring from running will certainly draw into sharp focus my life because there will be a void to fill and I think a lot when I’m not busy and time to think for someone like me is never a good thing.
Perhaps I’ll take up drinking? Mash my brain to reduce the thinking? It’s something I gave up around 6 years ago but I could give it a go again or perhaps reinvigorate all those real life social connections I’ve let drift away or create new non running related ones. I wonder how many hours a week that will take up? I wonder if that will eat into ‘time at home’. I wonder if the cost of Central London nights out is comparable to the time and financial cost of my running? I guess we’ll find out.
So giving up running might well pave the way for a lifestyle reset – let’s hope she enjoys what she gets.
PS. I realise I’m a selfish prick – you don’t need to tell me