New Year, New Website, New Plan

Thoughts on Running in the New Year

It's almost the beginning of a new year. I think I'll get reflective in a different, later post. For now I have some thoughts, and I'll leave it at this: 2025 was not my favorite and also put me where I need to be.

I've had a bit of a reckoning. A reckoning with my running, with my business, with my life, with my career. In short, I realized this:

I've been trying to fast forward. Maybe I've been trying to cheat. At the most generous, I've been trying to skip steps, take shortcuts, jump ahead.

Here I am, telling my athletes to be patient. Encouraging them to play the long game. Cheering them on for building toward their goals in methodic, strategic steps.

All the while, I've been convincing myself of course I'm still in marathon shape! All I have to do is commit and it'll come right back! Of course I need a base but do I really need a base? Or does that really good base I had in 2018 still count? (Spoiler: it does not!)

It sounds simple. But I have hubris. I've really gone into every marathon training cycle getting stuck in the same situation. It looks like this:

• get excited about a race. make a plan. give myself 4-8 weeks of base building. tell myself I have to actually be consistent if I want to run the race.

• run inconsistently. do not follow the plan.

• show up day 1 of training and say "okay but I'm not in terrible shape, and it's a conservative training plan, and by the time the runs get really long I'll be consistent."

• skip runs. skip long runs. runs feel hard (obviously). I get in my head (obviously).

• open RunSignup. Defer. Change distances. Bail entirely.

• tell myself it'll be differently this time. because this time I'll really build a base, I'll really be patient, I'll really do the work.

• get excited about a race. repeat.

The thing is, I love training. And I love racing. I love all of it. But I've been caught in this cycle and feeling like a failure, when really I've just been impatient and irresponsible. That's not failing! That's just something that I needed to realize, face, and not make excuses for. I'm finally doing that this season.

I gave myself a full season off of feeling like there's anything I should be doing. Right now, it's about what feels good. That means, honestly, I'm running very little. It doesn't feel good, but I've had time for hobbies. I crocheted a duck! I'm writing more! How cool!

But the point is, I had to look at things and realize I was a) overreaching and b) lying to myself. So now I'm trying to do that! And it led to evaluating other areas in my life where I'm making similar "full speed ahead, skip steps, see if it works out" kinds of choices.

I trialed a new coaching program this year, and it went okay! As it went on, I realized there were a lot of things I would immediately do differently. I also got a lot of great feedback from the athletes who participated. But it also made me realize, I'm trying to do too much here, too.

As much as I would love to have a zillion different types of offerings, send out a monthly newsletter with curated information and running news, and grow Overlap Running, I need to be building my base right now. That base is my one-on-one personal coaching, i.e. the part of it I love. The reason I coach at all. I don't want my athletes to suffer because I'm throwing spaghetti at the wall trying to grow a business where I really need to be feeding the core of it (that metaphor makes no sense but I'm in the zone, there's no backspace button anymore).

So here we are. I'm going into 2026 with two new coaching specialization certifications that are really important to me (Coaching the Pregnant and Postpartum Endurance Athlete; Female Physiology). That feels like feeding the core. Why am I sticking with this metaphor?

I've done a thorough inventory on how I set up the operations of Overlap, cutting out the stuff that just isn't necessary at this stage of its life (turns out you can't will yourself into a huge roster just by signing up for a Zoom Premium account). I totally re-did the website, just focusing on one thing: my one-on-one coaching with athletes. Back to basics we go. With coaching, with running, with as much as I can.

Time to build a base so that I can go into the next phase stronger than ever.

Happy New Year! Be kind to yourselves!

(but not so kind that you lie to yourself for eight years)

Bye!