Why Janice Doesn’t Run Marathons Anymore

Hi, I’m Janice from The Fitness Cheerleader. I love Bobbi and have been stopping by her blog almost every day for the past few months because Bobbi is cute and she has an amazing smile 🙂 Oh – and it helps that she’s a runner too. Generally I agree with her on everything… except marathons. She’s asked us to write about why we love marathons and I just can’t do that. You see – I HATE full marathons and don’t enjoy running them anymore – now I think half marathons are the perfect distance (for me).

And here’s why:

Toenails – I love having cute toes nails. The three times I trained for, and completed full marathons I lost the toenails from my pinky and index toes. This is because fatigue alters my gait in training runs over 2 hours and my run becomes more of a shuffle than a run (walkers pass me).

Extreme Weather Running – I live in Canada (near Toronto, ON) and we get some very extreme temperatures. Our winters are cold (last week I ran in -1F), and our summers are hot (some days the temperature raises above 90F). We have two marathon seasons – May and late Sept/early Oct. The rest of the year is too hot or too cold. A 1-2 hour long run is perfect in our weather – with a 3-4 hour run you risk hyperthermia (winter), and dehydration (summer).

Dreadmills – I don’t do treadmills. I don’t have one nor do I have access to one. Beating the weather on one of these beasts is out of the question for me. I also find them too dangerous to have one in my house (RIP Exodus Tyson).

Time – I solo parent my 2 and 4 year old daughters 50% of the year because my hubby travels a lot for work. I just don’t have the time to train for full marathons anymore. I can fit enough junk miles in on my 1 hour lunch breaks from work, and generally don’t have a problem getting a sitter (or my hubby when he’s in town) to watch the kids for 1-2 hours during my weekend long runs. I just don’t have the energy or patience for 3-4 hour long runs and to care for my kids for the rest of the day. For me, at my stage of life, half-marathons are the perfect distance. They’re long and challenging enough to require dedication during training. To meet the training demands I need to eat healthy and get adequate rest. That said, the training doesn’t take away from my family time, in fact it adds to it. I’m happy and healthy (as much mentally as I am physically). And that is precisely why I no longer run full marathons and have come to enjoy half marathons – it makes me a much better parent, wife and employee.

Thanks! Janice

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Thanks Janice for sharing your story! I love to hear all aspects of where people are in their running career, even if they don’t like to run marathons. So if you have a “Why I DON’T” run marathon story, then send it my way.