Jess McClain Took a 2-Year Break From Running—and Came Back Faster Than Ever. Here’s What You Can Learn From Her Impressive Return.
About six years ago, Jess McClain went out for her scheduled workout—1,000-meter repeats—like any other day. She felt like she was going full send, but was frustrated to see that each rep actually clocked in about 45 seconds slower than her goal time.
The experience was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, after slowly losing motivation and excitement for competing professionally. “I ended up walking home and I texted my coach that day and said, ‘I think I need to shut this down,’” she recalls. He responded that a week off sounded like a good idea, to which she said: “No, I think I need to shut it down for good.”
Luckily, her professional running break only lasted about two years, during which she met her now-husband, reconnected with old friends, and got married.
In 2022, just after her honeymoon, McClain saw an ad for the Mesa Marathon in Arizona, happening a few days before her 30th birthday, and signed up on a whim. “I actually built a playlist that was two hours and 45 minutes long and I was like, ‘I’d be really stoked if I finished the race before this playlist ended,’” she says.
She finished in 2:32—and won. But the best part? “I was like, ‘damn, that was so fun,’” she says. “I probably still have Mai Tais in my system from my honeymoon and I’m running 2:32 and I ran 45 to 55 miles a week and I felt awesome and I just had so much fun. This is when I knew there’s that competitor still in me.”
That experience was the jump-start she needed to get back to the sport professionally—but with a promise to herself that she would always find joy in the process going forward.
“I think I had a lot of joy running in college, but then I think as a professional, I took it so, so seriously that it was almost like all I had and all I poured myself into,” McClain says. “Taking time away from the sport gave me a lot of perspective and reminded me why I love it.”
Clearly this mindset shift is working for her: Since the Mesa Marathon, McClain has run some of the best races of her life, including placing fourth at the Olympic Marathon Trials ahead of the Paris Games and setting the American course record at this year’s Boston Marathon with a time of 2:20:49.
McClain isn’t the only example of an athlete who took time off after feeling burned out, rediscovered the love of the sport, and made an insanely impressive comeback. And you don’t have to be a pro to gain the benefits of running for fun, including leading to your best race performances.
Why Finding More Joy in Running Could Lead to a Breakthrough
Sometimes taking a break is what athletes of all levels need in order to rediscover joy in their sport—and possibly come back stronger than ever. Figure skater Alysa Liu temporarily retired after the 2022 Olympics because of burnout, then came back to win two gold medals at the Milan Cortina Games in 2026 after restarting the sport initially for fun.
Part of the reason taking a break can ultimately have a positive effect on performance could be because the athlete is exercising their autonomy, says Erin Ayala, PhD, LP, a sports psychologist, certified mental performance consultant, and founder of Skadi Sport Psychology.
“When an athlete is able to choose to step away, that helps with motivation because they feel like they’re in charge of their athletic identity,” she says. “And then they’re also usually able to reconnect with what they loved about running because when we take off that pressure, it lights that fire inside of them again where they’re like, ‘oh yeah, this is why I got into it.’”
A break also allows athletes to lean into other parts of their identity, whether that’s as a partner, sibling, parent, cook, or otherwise. “When we only see ourselves as an athlete or a runner, we’re more vulnerable to burnout, depression, anxiety, [and] spirals when running is not going well,” she says.
However, catching the early signs of athletic burnout could help you to prevent it from manifesting and necessitating a long break.
Signs of Athletic Burnout
There’s a difference between true athletic burnout and normal training fatigue. Here are a few signs it’s the former, according to Ayala:
- Physical and emotional exhaustion that doesn’t go away with rest and recovery
- A reduced sense of accomplishment and motivation or hitting a progress plateau
- Sport devaluation, which is losing connection with your why and just doing the sport out of a sense of obligation
- Dreading workouts that you used to look forward to
- Irritability, mood swings, or difficulty concentrating
- Fantasizing about quitting but feeling trapped
How to Find More Joy in Running
Whether you’re burned out or not, making running more joyful can benefit every runner. Looking forward to your runs not only keeps you consistent—a key factor for race-day performance—but can also improve your speed and your endurance.
Here are a few ways to amplify the fun.
Rediscover Your Why
When Ayala works with clients dealing with burnout, the first thing she does is help them rediscover their why—and it’s something you can do yourself, too, Ayala says. “Think about when you first started doing this, what was driving you, what was getting you excited to get out of bed in the morning or to go for the run?,” she asks.
Greg Laraia, a running coach at Motiv in New York City, says that most people will have five to 10 “whys” if you dig deep enough. A client might say the reason they’re running the marathon is to PR so he’ll ask why they want to PR. “They’re like, ‘Well, because [I want to be] faster than last time,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, why?’ If you can keep asking why and just pull them a little bit deeper than, ‘I want to run fast,’ a lot of times they’ll actually realize either they do really care about this or it’s so superficial that it doesn’t really matter,’” he says. “I think that’s a huge piece of what can help preserve enjoyment, too, and then being able to tap back into that.”
Ayala says that the ways to tap into and preserve fun are often tied to community, self-improvement, or time for yourself.
Give Yourself Choices
Again, autonomy is key to helping prevent burnout and there are small ways you can exercise it on the regular. For example, build in more of your favorite kinds of workouts, even if they’re not “ideal” or exactly what’s on your training plan, Ayala says. “If it’s bringing you more joy, it’s totally worth it. Having more agency over [your] training is really important and it is really effective.”
This might look like running your local free 5K in the park or joining your friends for their track workouts.
Stay Present in the Process
McClain says that prior to 2020, she was very focused on the outcome. “In practice, I’d get spun up if I was off a few seconds on a rep and then I think that just snowballs into overanalyzing and overthinking racing and worrying about the things I couldn’t control,” she says. “Now I’ve relinquished a lot of that and I just focus on what I can control and I really try to enjoy the whole process. I think that’s lent itself to just feeling a little bit more free while running.”
No one wants to get to a race like the marathon, in which you put in 16 to 20 weeks of training, have it go poorly and look back thinking you didn’t enjoy the build, McClain adds. If you actually enjoyed getting to the start, the finish line in itself is just an extra sweet payoff.
Ayala helps her clients set process goals—where they focus on how they want to execute the race or training instead of just the splits, times, or the paces—for this exact purpose. “That might be showing up on race day with a tutu and sparkles and giving as many high fives as possible or volunteering with an organization,” like Girls of the Run, she says.
Celebrate the Small Wins
Earlier in her career, McClain says she was “bad” at celebrating small wins. “I was just so addicted to setting PRs and hitting my highest mileage week and I think there’s so many things along the way that you can celebrate,” she says. “Don’t take yourself so seriously and have fun along the way and then celebrate all the small milestones and the big ones.”
For McClain, those small wins include celebrating being able to get in 90 grams of carbs per hour on a long run or simply being able to get up on the first alarm during the summer.
Fight Perfectionism
These days, McClain says she’s focused on listening to her body and adapting her plan accordingly. “The goal is to get the workout done as it’s written on my plan, but there are a lot of times where I’m pulling audibles and adjusting the pace based on how my body feels on the day,” she says. “I think that’s also made it more fun because my body’s just agreeing with the training and what I’m doing instead of doing three days of high intensity and a ton of mileage.”
In general, McClain focuses on two hard days and about 82 to 85 miles a week, which she says also gives her time for other stuff in her life.
Ayala points out that this flexibility is a great way to work against burnout: “We also know, unfortunately, perfectionists are more vulnerable to burnout,” she says.
“I think it’s good to practice adaptability also because in a marathon, you just never know what’s going to happen and you can feel so different in one mile to the next,” McClain says. “So also practicing how you’re talking to yourself when things get hard, that's really important to strengthen those muscles in your workouts and your long run.”
Forget the Stats (Temporarily)
Ignoring the data for a short time can help you decompress without reducing training load, Laraia says. That could look like starting your watch but not looking at it until your workout is over (rather than constantly looking at your heart rate, pace, etc.), he says. Or just go out for an hour-long run and don’t even start your device.
“Today, I think we’re surrounded by so much data and information that it’s really easy to get caught up in numbers and stats and either compare them to yourself or you compare to your friends,” Laraia says. And you know what they say about comparison being the thief of joy…
Take Notes
Laraia recommends that his clients jot down their emotional state after workouts and races just as they might keep track of more quantifiable metrics. “How did this long run feel? How did your mind feel? What were you thinking about in the workout or in the race? Those are things that I think are really important because it helps guide where to push them or pull back,” he says. Even without a coach, you can notice patterns in your own notes.
The key is to look for a mismatch in how you felt and how you performed. If your runs are feeling easy but your heart rate is higher, you may be pushing paces you aren’t ready to run. On the flip side, if a workout felt really hard but your heart rate was lower, that could mean something else is going on (potentially even an early sign of mental burnout) that’s worth paying attention to if it’s repeated (versus just one or two runs).
Don’t Get Hangry
“Eat more than you think you need—that's my biggest tip,” McClain says. “I feel like the amount that I’ve fueled and eaten on and off the runs in the last two or three years [has] kept me super healthy alongside a few other things, but I think fueling is so important,” she says. “Making sure you’re taking care of your body on the nutrition front is really, really big.”
Think about it: You’re not having fun when you’re hangry, right?
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Now, when McClain travels for races, she builds in time for fun with her husband. “That’s been a huge additive mindset to this whole elite racing thing—you can have a great time,” she says. “You don’t have to be holed up in your hotel room and you can lean into all the fun appearances and the shakeout runs. It’s energy adding instead of energy sucking for me.”
By taking time to enjoy the experience, even if the race doesn’t go exactly as she hoped, McClain still had a good time. “I raced in New York a few weeks ago and it was probably the first race in a while where I was just like, ‘eh, not my day,’ but I had such a good time in New York anyways that I’ll still look back on that weekend and be super happy and stoked about it,” she says.
Take the Break
Some seasons of life necessitate more R&R, and you need to give your body enough time to absorb the stress of training, Ayala points out. She experienced this firsthand on the heels of COVID-19 when a close friend died, and she felt super burned out in general. She took two months off from cycling—the first in almost a decade of consistent training—and ended up setting a new PR within eight weeks of getting back to it.
“I'm really convinced that it was because I just finally listened to my body and took the pressure off and just took a break,” Ayala says. “It led to a huge boost in performance in one of my best seasons afterward, which was pretty cool.”
Sometimes, even a shorter break—like five days—can be enough to circumvent burnout, Laraia says. “It could be as simple as dropping a hard run or taking an extra day off or reducing mileage or just doing an easy run instead of that hard workout.” Whatever break you need to come back with excitement is worth it.