A Restorative Run

Last week, I was off as far as my running was concerned. I ran four times last week, and each time, each run felt like a battle. They were hard, uninspired, unimpressive, and frustrating. Whenever I have a few bad runs in a row, I always start to question my running and doubt myself, which continued to lead to more and more bad runs.
I downloaded new music, and that didn't help. I ran outside and it was terrible. I ran on the treadmill and hated every second of it. I tried a speed work out, and felt terrible the whole time. I went to a few spinning classes and they were great, but my running suffered and I hated it. Every time I started to feel tired, to feel pain, or even started breathing hard, I would just quit. I stopped pushing myself and gave into the doubt and listened to that doubtful voice in my head that said I would never be able to do it.
On Saturday, I decided to go out and just run. I had no pace goal. I left my Garmin at home, and I decided to just run. I wanted to run to feel good, I wanted to run to lose myself in my thoughts. I wanted to run to not think about running. I wanted to enjoy myself and let go of the doubt monster. And I did. I ran some hills, some pretty hard hills, and they hurt, but I did it. There were points where I was tired and wanted to quit, but I powered through and did it. It is funny how one good run could give me my confidence back. I needed that run on Saturday. It helped me gain my confidence back and brought back my swagger.
One thing I realized was that I ran two marathons without the help of my Garmin watch, and I did just fine. While I like running with the watch, when I wear it, I look at it obsessively and worry about pace and negative splits. I think I need to go out without the watch some days and just run for the pleasure of it.