Trails. I've been running for over a decade and have never once "enjoyed" a city or pavement run. A half marathon in the city feels like torture but I can easily do 50k runs on trails.

Humans aren't meant to run on pavement in the city or on treadmills. It makes running much less enjoyable.

Maybe never going slow enough? There should be a pace where you can comfortably hold a conversation as if nothing is happening, specially after years of running. It might just be slower than you think, but "conversation pace" is how I think about it.

Yep, slow down enough so that you don't sweat and can breathe 100% through your nose. At first you'll be very slow but if you keep on going weeks after week you'll slowly get faster. A big part of it is mental too, if you're in relatively good shape even as a complete beginner your body shouldn't complain too much for at least an hour, if you're experienced you should be able to sustain that for hours

That's what I do as an amateur but then again I have no running watch, I run in $15 shoes, I don't care about PR, distance, &c. all I care about is slowly and safely building cardiovascular endurance

Unless your true max is at 195 or something 165 HR will not feel effortless. I ran 25k at 132HR on Sunday and even there the last 8k where no longer carefree. My HRmax is 186 currently and my threshold HR is about 170bpm.

With the “220 minus your age” rule my max would be 182 bpm. If I run at 175 bpm I can manage 30 minutes and run ~6K in that time (and be very tired the rest of the day). 165 bpm I can manage for an hour.

Beyond that, boredom and sore feet set in before cardio becomes the limit. I can’t imagine ever running 25K…even at a low(er) HR. Maybe if I lose another 5 to 10 kg of weight…

My story was exactly like yours. I have been running for many years, did a few half marathons, but it never got easier. I could never do the 'effortless' carefree running that I heard so many talking about.

In 2021 I got COVID and couldn't run since. I'd be exhausted and out of breath after just a kilometer or so, it was frustrating to say the least. To overcome that I proposed a 100-day running challenge with a buddy. We live in different cities, so we just ran our own distance and speed we were comfortable with. No tracking app, no stats, no target time or distance, just go out every day and go for a run. First 50 days were frustrating, it took me weeks to just get up to just 2km and then immediately plateaued. The around day 50 I noticed I could slowly start to pick up distance. I intentionally capped the distance to 6km or so, knowing that a 100-day streak is not great for your body. The last 10 days I decided to run 10km every day, which to my surprise I could do effortlessly. And I noticed something else changed. I did the 10km and then I... just wanted to keep going. I didn't though, knowing that 10km a day was already a terrible idea for someone of my age.

After the challenge I took 2 weeks to recover, and then I just went for a long run, see what would happen. I did 16km that day and other than noticing being low on energy at the end, I never felt out of breath. I didn't set that as a target, I just kept going until I no longer felt like going further. I now regularly do a 25km run, but there are also days where I do 10 and feel content. I don't bring my phone or smartwatch, I don't track my time or progress, I don't set targets, I don't care anymore. When it feels good I'll keep going, and if not I'll just do a shorter route, I'm no longer pushing myself. Running has now become my way of relaxing, gathering my thoughts, enjoying being outside. It has become effortless and carefree.

Maybe for everyone it's different, but in my N=1 experience I just needed to stop chasing progress, don't set expectations, no targets. Just get out there and enjoy yourself. Sometimes I do still push myself just for fun to see what I'm now capable of, but other than that I deliberately stay below my limit.

Not sure what the takeaway from this story is supposed to be, I just felt like sharing. Hopefully it helps someone finding more enjoyment in running :-)

> I don't bring my phone or smartwatch, I don't track my time or progress, I don't set targets, I don't care anymore.

I'm jealous of this "Forrest Gump" mindset...I also run to maintain/lose weight, so I use my watch (plus intuition, as mentioned) to manage my pace/heart rate/effort so I can run a long enough distance to burn enough calories.

Although I also realize and acknowledge all these stats are probably at least 50% there to satisfy my caveman need for external validation.

The greatest improvement I got in running and general fitness was early 2015 when I did the "do >=1km a day" for 5 months. Often times it was a quick sprint around the block just before midnight (and sometimes then resting until after midnight to knock off the next day if I was busy) but sometimes it was a decent distance. The consistency was what really got everything flowing though.