Do We Take Running Too Seriously?

I spent part of a recent podcast conversation asking coach John Ferry a question I couldn't stop thinking about:

Do marathon runners take running too seriously?

The question came from listening to ultrarunners.

I hear stories of athletes running a marathon one weekend and a 50-miler the next. They seem relaxed. Playful. Curious. Meanwhile, many marathoners (myself included) build our entire year around two races—a spring marathon and a fall marathon.

Everything revolves around those days.

And if the weather is bad, or training doesn't go perfectly, or race day falls apart? It can feel like six months of work disappeared in a few hours.

John pointed out something that hit home for me: many runners get stuck in the same cycle year after year. Train for a marathon. Recover. Train for another marathon. Repeat.

The result?

Often, we end up running the same times over and over again.

Not worse. Not better. Just...the same.

His argument wasn't that marathon training is wrong. It was that we sometimes forget there are other ways to improve.

Run a 5K.

Get on a track.

Join a relay.

Spend a season working on speed instead of endurance.

Try something completely different.

The irony is that stepping away from marathon training for a while might actually make you a better marathoner.

What I loved most about our conversation was that it kept coming back to one idea: running should still be fun.

Somewhere along the way, many of us started treating every race like a final exam. Every workout has to matter. Every season needs a goal. Every run needs a purpose.

But the runners who stay in the sport for decades seem to maintain a sense of curiosity.

They're willing to experiment.

They're willing to fail.

They're willing to run a race simply because it sounds fun.

John talked about relay races, team competitions, and even events where runners pass ridiculous objects instead of batons. It sounds silly—and that's exactly the point.

Kids naturally know how to play.

Adults tend to forget.

Maybe the future of running isn't another marathon cycle.

Maybe it's trying a new distance.

Maybe it's signing up for a 5K.

Maybe it's running a relay with friends.

Maybe it's finding your favorite kind of hard instead of doing the same hard thing over and over again.

So do we take running too seriously?

Sometimes.

But maybe the better question is:

How much more fun could running be if we didn't?