After my last marathon I took four weeks off. Aggressive training block, body needed the rest.
About two weeks in I started getting this feeling I was missing something. What dawned on me was that running meant more to me than the time. It was where I sorted out a whole bunch of problems I didn’t even know I was carrying. Having a singular focus on a PB gave me something to aim at — but I was pushing real decisions about work and relationships to one side. Running was how I stayed on top of all of it.
There’s research that explains why. The prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for overthinking — quiets significantly during sustained aerobic exercise. The inner critic goes offline. Things surface that couldn’t get through the noise before.
I stopped logging pace and started logging what I was carrying before each run and what shifted after. That record means more to me now than years of Strava data.
Interested whether others have gone through a similar shift — particularly anyone who’s stepped back from performance running and found something different underneath it.