“I’ve just lost my running mojo.”

“I’m bored with the same old runs.”

“I’m not enjoying it anymore.”

Sue was stuck in a running rut. Building up to her first 10km, she found it really difficult getting out of the house to start her longer runs. So, I picked her up in the car once a week, drove her 5 miles out of town and made her run back. (I met her with some water at halfway – I’m not that cruel.)

But she loved it – “it’s so much easier running A to B, and back towards home” – and she did a great time in her target race.

We all get stuck in a rut sometimes. Maybe you’ve lost the inspiration to get out there. Perhaps your training has lost purpose since you achieved that last goal or did that last race.

But what can you do about it? (Apart from getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere!)

Probably the most obvious thing – and one I’ve mentioned before – is get yourself a new running target that is meaningful to you.

It could be doing a different race – one that’s further than you’ve gone before, or on a different surface perhaps.

How about a track race for instance – scary!!

It could be time-related – you really want to get under 40 minutes for a parkrun, an hour for a 10km, 2 hours for a half marathon. Identifying what is motivating – feasible but ‘a stretch’ – will make you get out there with more regularity and more purpose. You’ll know what you want to achieve, and the training you need to do to get there.

It could just be running all the way up that long hill, or doing 3 miles without walking, running every day in May, or doing at least 10 miles every week.

You can do other things to mix it up too.

Take your favourite running route and simply run it the other way – you’ll see things differently – and that might help.

Maybe plot a new route – you must know roads or footpaths that you’ve seen and not yet explored. Go online or get a map – an Ordnance Survey Explorer with a 1:25,000 scale shows you the routes in enough detail to see where they go, how hilly they are and what sort of land you are crossing.

See where that footpath that you’ve noticed goes – maybe it links with one of your other running routes, and opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

You could drive somewhere different to run – even a few minutes in the car can multiply your range of routes – it is well worth the effort of getting in the car, if you are much more likely to run this new, more congenial course.

Or you could get some nice friend to drop you off, so you can run your required distance back towards home!

You could simply run at a different time of day.

Now, I quite understand that almost all of us are constrained by family and/or work commitments, but for most of us, early in the morning or late at night is free time. The world is different in the dark – in the early morning especially, it is as if you are the only one around.

Maybe run without your watch or phone – focus on the experience rather than the performance.

If you’ve been running a while, your rut could just be down to the fact that you are running too much, and not giving yourself a chance to recover properly.

Maybe you need to ease back for a week or two. Perhaps you should make more difference between the easy runs and the hard ones – make the easy ones really gentle jogs, and then go for it a bit more on the harder speed, hill, tempo or long sessions.

That is the way to improve – and that in itself will spur you on.

How about treating yourself to some new, lighter, racing shoes? If you’ve been running for a while and always slogged along in ultra-supportive trainers, you’ll be surprised how much difference fewer grams on your feet can make.

You’ll feel like you’re flying.

Join a group. It doesn’t have to be a running club, though these are good and generally very welcoming and supportive of everyone, no matter your standard. But there are also lots of informal groups around too – friends or work colleagues who’ve discovered a mutual interest and arrange to meet, maybe just once a week. Have a look for these online. You are of course much more likely to get out there if you know that your comrades are waiting for you and ready to support your efforts.

How about taking a running holiday? It doesn’t have to be all about exercise (unless you’re a professional ultra-runner, you can’t run all day), but maybe just somewhere with the right climate and facilities.

You can organise this yourself of course, but there are specialist running travel companies who put on training weeks. I am thinking in particular of 209 Events, based in Farnborough (I am not on commission!), and their Algarve spring training weeks, which are very popular, especially for people building up to the London Marathon.

In the warmth of the Algarve, there are organised group runs, speed sessions and talks, but you can do as much or as little as you like. You will feed off the energy of the group and find yourself doing a little more than usual, coming back home re-motivated to keep your improvement going.

So, yes, it’s only human to get stuck in a rut sometimes, but just bear in mind that there are ways that you can get yourself out.

Get yourself a new target or a new route, get yourself a new time to run or new shoes, get yourself a new group or a new running holiday.

But, you know as well as I do, that, whatever you’ve done to change it up, in the end you just have to get out there and get on with it!