I hate running right now.

That’s pretty much where I’m at. I ran 17 miles last week, all indoors. I have cracked 50 miles ONCE in this training cycle, which is a training cycle for a 50 mile race. Can’t get 50 miles in a week, but definitely will be able to do 50 miles in (less than) one day.

This is normal and seems to happen every winter. The sun goes down early. The weather is cold. The sidewalks are iffy. The trails are unpacked. The wind is brutal. The gear is cumbersome. The water freezes. The gels freeze. Snot freezes. Sweat freezes. Tears freeze.

It’ll all be fine eventually. I’ll make it out of this funk (I ran 7.5 miles today, for example), but it sucks when I’m down in it. I’m bored of the treadmill. I dislike most of the running routes that are still available to me. I’m tired of encountering snow/ice/poor conditions halfway through a run. I’m tired of layering up and laundering my clothes constantly. I will find pretty much any excuse to put off a run, then get frustrated that I have left myself with little daylight to get it done.

I’ve kind of accepted that I’m going to go into Zumbro 50 undertrained, and I’m just going to have to deal with it. (Unless I’m in Buffalo for the men’s Frozen Four. Which I said I wasn’t going to. But I’m sure I’ll waver if UMD makes it.) I have almost no runs completed that one would call a “long run.” I’ve tried to balance motivation and self-preservation, frostbite and sweat, treadmill and trail. I’m failing at most of my year-long goals, but I can always make more progress later, once I’m back in a running groove.

I guess maybe signing up for a race would be a good idea. The Hot Dash is coming up soon, and while I don’t always love grinding out a run on that hilly course, it would be a nice medium-ish run that could give me back some of my running mojo. Of course that is over a month away, so I’m going to have to find a better solution. A beautiful day in the woods will probably do wonders.

If you’re a cold weather runner and you’re going through the same doldrums as I am, hang in there. Eventually it’ll be spring, and until then, we’ll just have to find that invincible summer inside ourselves.