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Comment by heinrichhartman | Hacker News Reader

In 2014, I ran 5km every morning. 356 days. I hated every single one of these runs. I did get better at it, but I did not end up enjoying it. Certainly was never "feeling amazing".

Eventually dropped the habbit. Now spending more time in the Gym and on the Bike.

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First, I'm not saying this would've helped you (I don't know), it's just a story and perhaps someone who is like me gets inspiration from it :)

If I hadn't created three excellent mix tapes (that I still use to this day!) when I started running 10y ago, I might have ended up in your boat. I didn't care much for the running, but having a burn out meant I shouldn't be on the computer as much, and I didn't know what to do with the time. In the beginning I was having fun with how far into the mix I could get before running out of breath (I didn't sprint or anything, just no physical condition to speak of), and adding to the mix as I got further. At some point I decided perhaps I needed another mix with alternating running and walking parts[0]. I adjusted the BPM to my natural running gait. Added a little intro for when I leave the house to when I'm on the street. Everything was chosen with the idea that I wouldn't get bored during running, so it was a sequence of the "best", most uplifting, powerful parts of each track, each lasting about a minute (or 128 beats maybe). Between runs I kept optimizing the mixes for a while, improving the splice points and crossovers etc. Unfortunately I lost the original Ableton project files to a fire. Thankfully I had shared the mixes to friends, who could at least provide me with the mp3 renders.

One day I'm going to add a fourth mix :) But I don't use pirated software any more, and not being a professional musician I can't really justify the cost of buying Ableton (or Bitwig, which at least runs on Linux). Unfortunately I've found no other free (or cheap) software that comes close to the ease with which you can simply splice and beat-match audio clips. Or just navigating and zooming a large audio file. Audacity is there when you really need something done, but it's hardly a smooth workflow.

[0] it's as if psytrance and psydub were made for this, one is exactly half the BPM of the other!

I think there's a big difference between pushing through occasional lulls, and never wanting to do something ever.

You clearly fell into the latter camp.

I read a book called 80/20 running, that pointed out that most of us run most of our runs too fast. It made a huge difference in my training, to run at (say) 60% of my pace most of the time instead of 90% as most of us do. I felt better, I enjoyed it more, it created less anxiety to start a run, I recovered faster, and I could log more miles per week.

I feel when you push yourself too hard it will make you look less forward to your next workout. Best to end on a good/interesting note similar to how TV episodes do - making you want to come back for more.

I competed nationally in track and field for 7 years & did not enjoy a single training session during that time.

I'll go ahead and fire off a recommendation to find a muay thai gym that has dedicated conditioning classes and some cool people. I wish I would have discovered it 10 years earlier when I started running cross country.

Running, for me, was the Runescape of sports. Very grindy, with very little room for me to use my mind.

Try running further.

At 5k your body is only just about warmed up - I never really enjoy a run until after the 5k mark, it gets easier after that point

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