Six years ago, professional runner Jess McClain headed out for a routine workout of 1,000-meter repeats. She felt she was pushing hard, but each rep came in roughly 45 seconds slower than her goal. That session broke something that had already been cracking.
“I ended up walking home and I texted my coach that day and said, ‘I think I need to shut this down,’” she recalls. Her coach suggested a week off. McClain’s reply was sharper: “No, I think I need to shut it down for good.”
The break lasted about two years. During that time she met her now-husband, reconnected with old friends, and got married. In 2022, just after her honeymoon, she saw an ad for the Mesa Marathon in Arizona. It fell a few days before her 30th birthday. She 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. The feeling surprised her. “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 race became the jump-start for a return to professional running—this time with a promise to herself to keep finding joy in the process.
“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.”
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The mindset shift produced quick results. Since Mesa, she has run some of the best races of her career, 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 is not the only athlete who took time off after burnout, rediscovered the love of the sport, and came back stronger. Figure skater Alysa Liu temporarily retired after the 2022 Olympics because of burnout, then returned to win two gold medals at the Milan Cortina Games in 2026 after restarting the sport initially for fun.
The psychology behind this pattern is fairly straightforward, according to Erin Ayala, PhD, LP, a sports psychologist 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.”
A break also allows athletes to lean into other parts of their identity—partner, sibling, parent, cook. “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,” Ayala says.
The comparison to Liu’s arc is telling. Both women walked away at a high level, not because they were injured or slow, but because the internal math stopped adding up. The rest period didn’t just heal fatigue—it reset their relationship to the sport entirely. That kind of reset is available to amateurs too, though most never take it.
Catching burnout early can prevent the need for a long break entirely. Ayala lists several warning signs: physical and emotional exhaustion that doesn’t fade with rest; a reduced sense of accomplishment; sport devaluation, where you lose connection with your why and run out of obligation; dreading workouts you used to look forward to; irritability or mood swings; and fantasizing about quitting but feeling trapped.
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Whether burned out or not, making running more joyful can benefit any runner. Looking forward to runs keeps you consistent—a key factor for race-day performance—and can improve speed and endurance.
The psychologist helps clients rediscover their why by asking a simple question: “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?”
Greg Laraia, a running coach at Motiv in New York City, says most people have five to 10 “whys” if you dig deep enough. A client might say they want to PR. He’ll ask 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.
Autonomy matters, too. Ayala recommends building in more of your favorite kinds of workouts, even if they’re not ideal for the training plan. “If it’s bringing you more joy, it’s totally worth it,” she says. That might mean running a local free 5K or joining friends for their track workouts.
McClain now focuses on two hard days per week and about 82 to 85 miles, leaving time for other parts of life. She listens to her body and adapts. “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.
Laraia suggests ignoring the data temporarily—starting your watch but not looking at it until the workout ends, or leaving the device at home entirely. “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,” he says.
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Another tool: keeping notes on how you felt during runs and races, not just the splits. The coach asks clients to track their emotional state. A mismatch between how you felt and how you performed can signal early burnout worth paying attention to.
McClain’s simplest tip might be the most practical: “Eat more than you think you need—that’s my biggest tip.” She credits consistent fueling—on and off the run—for keeping her healthy. “You’re not having fun when you’re hangry, right?”
Ayala took two months off from cycling after a close friend died and she felt burned out. Within eight weeks of returning, she set a new PR. “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,” she says.
Laraia notes that even a shorter break—five days—can be enough to circumvent burnout. “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.”
McClain now builds time for fun with her husband when she travels for races. “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.”
She recently raced in New York and had an off day. But she had a good time anyway. “I’ll still look back on that weekend and be super happy and stoked about it,” she says.
