It gets better

I've had a horrible time running for the last 6 months. I've never been a fast runner by any means, but in April I was running sub 10 minute miles. That's really good for me. Then I went on the Whole30 diet with my friend for the month of May and running was murder. Seriously I dreaded it every time it was a running day. I think the only reason I actually forced myself to go was because of my New Year's resolution to run 600 miles. I was slower than cold tar, I was tired the whole time and tired for the rest of the day. I thought it would get better when I went back to my regular diet. Nope. It was still miserable. I was slightly less tired, but still just as slow. And it started to make me mad. Really mad. Why on earth was I running when I wasn't improving? It wasn't fun. It was horrible. I'd be running and thinking, why am I doing this? What is the point? You are an idiot. Maybe I should have worked on more positive thinking, but even when I went out feeling good and had a positive attitude, I'd come back to the same slow times.
But I just stuck to it. Through early morning runs to avoid the heat. Early bedtimes, altered diet, more protein, more carbs, eat before, eat after and slowly. Oh so slowly, my times started coming back down and then in the last two weeks they've come down a lot! Monday I went running and it was awesome!! It was a longer-ish run and I kept up a good pace and when I got home I felt fantastic! I could have gone out and run some more. I was so happy and had lots of energy and it was great!!
I think so many times in life it's easy to get bogged down because we don't see any progress. All we see are the crappy trials and the failed attempts and the 8 steps back we just took, but if we just stick with it, keep trying, it will get better. Who knows how long it will take,  but it gets better.