I Missed One Run and Immediately Thought My Running Season Was Over

​I missed one run and, within an embarrassingly short amount of time, I had convinced myself that my entire season was falling apart behind the scenes. I think as runners, we've all been there.

We've all asked the question: how much fitness do I lose from missing one run?

Now, missing this run wasn't because I was injured. I was busy, and I kept telling myself I would go later, and eventually later became not happening. It was one of those normal days that doesn't come with a remarkable story. Some days, you have a full day and coulda, shoulda, woulda run earlier, but you didn't.

If I had been injured, I would have had something to blame. If I had been sick, I could have framed it as smart. Instead, I just didn’t run, which meant I had to sit there and deal with the thought that I could have and didn’t. I was tired and somewhat lazy.

A small thought like, well, that’s not great. Then it shifted into, you’ve been feeling good lately, what if this is where it starts slipping. Then into, this is how people lose momentum. Then somehow I was mentally fast-forwarding to race day, imagining myself thinking back to this exact missed run as the turning point and losing all of my fitness. Even typing this out is hilarious, because it was over one run.

I’ve been running long enough to know that fitness doesn’t disappear overnight. I know all of that. I just apparently didn't apply it to myself in the moment.

There’s something about missing a run that feels bigger than the mileage itself. It’s rarely about the four or six or eight miles. It’s about what that run represents. For a lot of us, running is the stable part of the day. It’s the one thing we carve out for ourselves. Whether it's your time alone, time before or after work, mental health time, social time, it's you time, and it’s proof that we’re still taking ourselves seriously.

When you skip it, even once, it can feel like you loosened something you weren’t supposed to loosen.

I caught myself replaying the entire day like it was game film. Why didn’t I go in the morning? Why did I assume I’d have energy at night? Why did I sit down? Why didn’t I just change and leave? None of that analysis was helpful. It was just my brain looking for a reason that would make the miss feel justified.

The reality was simpler then my brain likes to think. I was tired. I procrastinated. I let the window close, and that should have been the end of it.

Instead, I started thinking about running and momentum. As if the act of missing one workout cracked something that would now spread. As runners, we love the idea of momentum because it creates training seasons and ultimately creates personal bests.

If you zoom out far enough, one missed run is invisible. It disappears inside the larger pattern. It only feels catastrophic when you're living through it. My usual piece of advice is: will I remember this next month? If the answer is no, then it shouldn't be a big deal.

I think what makes it hit harder is the identity piece underneath running. Most of us see ourselves as people who show up, people who follow through, and people who don’t skip workouts unless there’s a good reason. Most runners are type A personalities, and when you miss one without a good reason, it feels like you've failed.

The next morning, I ran, and I was fine. In fact, I felt good. The world did not register that I had skipped a day. No one publicly shamed me, and I didn't feel like I lost all of my fitness. It was just…a run.

That’s the part I think most runners recognize. We aren’t undone by the missed run itself. We’re undone by what we decide it means, because sometimes we put more value in the sport than it just being "running."

Training seasons aren't perfect. They include late starts and schedule changes and days where motivation isn’t sharp. In fact, I actually fear training seasons that are perfect. I worry the imperfect moment will be the race.

Missing one run doesn’t end anything. Deciding that it does, and letting that belief change how you move forward, is what causes damage.

I missed one run, overreacted, and then got over it. I think most runners can relate to that.