My weird running experience as a beginner

I am not sure if I qualify to call myself an athlete or a runner yet because this is the third month I’ve been running and doing some workouts. I don’t want to lie, I wish I have never started! Sore muscles and foot pains like an old man. I keep asking myself “Why do I run?” To be honest, I am really not sure, I saw people running and thought that was an amazing thing to do, let me go for it! Well, it could be that, or it could not. At least I am getting used to it.

I sometimes get these weird vibes or feelings when I jog or doing workouts. I would feel like people are watching my every move. It makes me feel like they are throwing nasty comments about “how big I am to run.” I also feel like they are comparing my paces and see me as a slow runner ever! Well, I know they are wrong because I sometimes dream about running a lot in my sleep. I always dream about my next run and how I take a lead. The following day, weird vibes would keep showing up. I would come across an awkward moment where I would start taking a video of myself while running, just for my TikTok content. When I notice people are watching, I would pretend I’m in a video call and ending up talking to myself. Strange, hey?

During my morning runs, suddenly when I’m out of breath while running and a pretty lady is passing next to me, I get silent until she passes. I can’t risk being a laughing stock. I sometimes ask myself, am I being normal? or I should just accept that all beginners have the same experience?. When I run and see cars not stopping at stopping sign, I pretend to get annoyed, while in reality I’m glad that I got a little rest. Then I would keep up a little bit of pace to recover the delay. To be honest, I do all this for nothing, because I think nobody is watching.

Recently, I have decided to download a running app just to compare my paces you know. I think I am getting fond of this running thing, but still I’m getting weird vibes or feelings. Yesterday I became upset and shouted out loud because I forgot to press record for the timer to detect my distance. The other runner looked at me as if I was belonging to an asylum, then shook his head and kept running. What was I supposed to do? That whole running meant nothing, it didn’t count to me!