Holiday Season Runner Hibernation

I glanced down at my hot cup of coffee, wrapping my hands around it to warm them up, as I sat at a long wooden table near the window.  I had just finished a seven mile run on the Stevens Creek and Bay trails with the Mountain View Area Run Club Sunday morning crowd, with whom I had been running just about every Sunday morning for the last nine months.  The local Starbucks was relatively calm, as Julie, another member of the group sat across from me.  She had finished her run a few minutes ahead me and we were keeping warm inside as we waited for the rest of the group to finish.  After some post run small talk I asked her if she had any races planned for the upcoming year.  "Not right now" she answered, laughing.  "I'm a little burned out on running".  I jokingly gave her with a wide-eyed look before bursting into laughter, but in reality I knew exactly how she felt.  I too have been going through a similar experience.  As much as I love running, with winter setting in, I've been finding it difficult to scrounge together the energy to get out of bed early in the morning to log miles.  My friends and family in my Michigan hometown are most likely rolling their eyes, but there really is such a thing as a California Winter.  We may not have four distinct seasons like the Midwest, but the weather in late December is undeniably different than in late July.  The sun sets earlier in the day, rises later in the morning, and the temperature drops into the mid forties at night and early in the morning.  There are more clouds, more rain, and more wind.  The weather is one factor, but then there's also the holiday season.  Many of us get more days off of work, which makes us instinctively want to rest and sleep in more.  Subconsciously, we know that the end of the year is approaching, which means our minds and bodies are feeling the physical and mental exhaustion of putting hard work into our jobs, personal lives, and our hobbies and interests over the past twelve months.  I went through a similar situation last December and I'll freely admit that some mornings during the last few weeks of the year, it's a straight up battle to get out of bed before work and go for even a three mile run.  And that's with seven hours of sleep.

A few minutes later, some more of our friends drifted into the coffee shop and sat down at the table, having just finished their run.  After hearing that Samantha (Sammy), Garner, Olga, and some of the other members of the group have been experiencing similar sentiments towards running during the holiday season, it put me at ease.  The morning before, myself and another group had congregated at a park in Santa Clara to go for a group run along the Guadalupe River.  Although it was a glorious morning and there was hardly a cloud in the sky as the sun came up, the temperature had dropped into the high thirties overnight, unusually cold for the Bay Area for this time of year.  Only half of the people who RSVP'ed on the Meetup event page showed up.  I've come to realize over the last few years that holiday season runner hibernation, as I've coined it, is quite normal among endurance athletes.  As we sipped our coffee and shared our feelings and stories about lacking energy to run during the holiday season, a sense of relief seemed to spread throughout the group as we realized that none of us were alone in this predicament.  I especially understood Julie's point of view, having completed the California International Marathon three weeks ago, and Sammy's position as well after she trained hard for several months leading up to the Rock N Roll San Jose half marathon.  Their feelings of exhaustion were justified.  Garner on the other hand, despite his year end exhaustion, was still logging two digit mileage during our group runs, much to his credit since he is not doing it for training, but for pure enjoyment.  

Despite the exhaustion that we as runners feel during the final weeks of the year, once the new year kicks in, the proverbial reset button is hit.  Yes it's still cold outside, yes it's still dark in the morning, but the psychological factor has been overturned.  We no longer feel the fatigue of twelve months' worth of hard work.  We no longer feel unmotivated and unfocused.  In my case, it doesn't always happen right on January 1st, and it happens at a different time for all runners, but we know subconsciously that a new year is upon us.  It's time to get after it.  It's time to use the next twelve months to evolve as runners and people.  Some people sign up for races in advance at the beginning of the year as a form of motivation.  Others take it as it comes.  I tend to do a little of both by signing up for races to motivate myself, but also "winging it" throughout the year as a method of creating an element of surprise to keep life interesting.  There is no right or wrong way.  But one thing is for sure; holiday season runner hibernation is a completely normal occurrence that many distance runners contend with during the last few weeks of the year.  While it can feel dismal at times, the good news is that for many of us, once the new year hits, the proverbial clock is reset, and it's time to get back at it.  And we all have that to look forward to!