I run because I need to and I hate it

Ugh I hate running. I find it incredibly boring but I have friends that love it. I had to find something that I looked forward to doing. If you hate it, chances are you will find excuses not to do it. I hate running but I can walk/hike for miles. I tried Zumba and got hooked. I go to about 4-5 classes a week and I get bummed if I miss one.

Do you enjoy walking? Walking would be great exercise for you. You can even just walk 20 minutes at a time if that works into your schedule. It can burn a lot of calories. without the high impact.

I hated running. I found out a few years ago that the reason I hated running was because every time I would start running, all I did was run. So I would go out and struggle every step for a couple of miles. The next day I could hardly walk. I finished the couple of miles running without stopping and without walking and that was my problem.

My wife started to train for a marathon about that time and I took a look at her training regimen, which was for someone who had never run before. There was a very key component in there. For the first couple of weeks, with limited distances of 1.5 to 2.0 miles, I was supposed to walk for 1:30 and run for :30. Then slowly walk less and run more. Guess what? My legs did not feel so bad the next day and I slowly worked my way up to about 5.5 miles at a time without walking or stopping.

Although I never got the "runner's high" that so many talk about, my feeling toward running changed from "torture" to "tolerable". I never fell in love with it, but my wife did.

If you hate running, but have never built up endurance properly, I would submit that you don't really know whether you hate it or not. Having said all of that, you can do many other things than run in order to be more fit.

misskarne wrote: »

I hate running. Of all things, it makes my shoulder hurt. I'd rather skate and briskly walk than run.

Make sure you keep your hands loose while running. Make a fist with your thumb inside, it will help keep your hands not as tense.

Shoulder pain from running is generally from people tensing their arms while running. Making the loose fist, and keeping your thumbs inside encourages you to keep your arms loose.

Speaking as a formerly obese 52 year old who used to hate running, but now kind of loves it...

Life is full of choices. After many years of fighting with myself over them much like you describe, I realized that at some point we have to choose and accept the consequences of our decisions. You don't need to do anything. Really. You can choose to do nothing about your weight and fitness. You probably won't lose any weight or get any fitter if you do that, but it is a choice you can make.

But you want to lose weight and get more fit? Great! That makes all the difference, because now nothing and nobody is forcing you to do anything. Instead, you are making choices about what to do to achieve what you want.

The good news is that you don't need to run to lose weight. All you have to do to lose weight is eat less calories than you burn each day. MFP makes that easy, whether you exercise or not. Just set it up, log your meals, and meet whatever daily calorie target it gives you. If you do that, you will lose weight.

BUT, exercise does have many advantages: better health, better fitness, better looks (at least, I think so), and once you get into it, it makes you feel really good. It also means you can eat more while losing weight, because you are burning more calories.

Running has the additional advantage that you can do it almost anywhere, with minimal equipment (decent shoes), but there are lots of other good ways to get similar exercise. I used an elliptical machine for about 18 months until I lost enough weight and felt fit enough to start running.

Ultimately, though, if you really want a runner's body then you have to do what runners do: run. That means accepting that you ARE doing it because you want to. Not because you need to, but because you want to. Going from an obese non-runner to a fit runner is hard and a bit painful, but it is absolutely possible. It just takes determination. Fortunately, over time the pain decreases and the good feelings increase.

To answer your original question, my thoughts when I run are extremely varied, but typically with respect to my running, at the beginning of a run they are about how much everything hurts, toward the middle they are about how well it is going and how good it feels, and toward the end they are about how I am almost done. It helps if I stay focused on why I am doing it: because I want to and I want the benefits that come with doing it. The good news is that each week the "Oh god, it hurts!" and the "Keep going, you are almost done!" phases are growing shorter and the "This feels really good today!" phase is growing longer.

I always hated running.
This last year I started running in the nature reserve near my house. Trees and rocks and lizards and butterflies and ferns and trees again.

Now I really enjoy it.

Thought I'd do a road run to compare distance/time. Still kitten hate that. Exhaust and sun and footpaths and cars. Blerg.

There seems to be a trend here: people all hate running until they get good at it. I think that is probably true of every exercise. I do more cycling than running. It used to be that I always had trouble getting started in the Spring and I would always avoid cycling on windy days. My problem was that my fitness level wasn't high enough to deal with the conditions. It was always mid-summer before I was fit and then it was 105 degrees outside. But once I started riding through the winter it changed. My fitness level never really drops significantly and I am able to pick locations in my city as destinations and ride there without having to consider whether I am fit enough to make it there and back. I don't even have to consider how steep the hills are. I've gone from deciding that it is too windy to ride since the flags are standing straight out to looking forward to my evening ride because the flags are standing straight out. Overcoming the challenges changes everything.