Even though it can be hard at times and you may not enjoy every moment, training for long distance races can be a positive experience in many ways.

You get a chance to have alone time.

Even though it's great to be surrounded by people, having time alone is also nice at times. Running gives you the perfect opportunity to get time to yourself to either reflect on life, enjoy nature, listen to music, or just enjoy the peace and quiet.

It teaches discipline.

There's no one forcing you to stick to your schedule or training plan, and it's ultimately up to you to decide whether or not you'll choose to take the day off, shorten your run by a few miles, or go out and give it your all. Training for a marathon requires you to develop a great amount of discipline to ensure you stick to your schedule, because if not you will find yourself extremely unprepared when race day arrives.

It improves your time management.

By having to schedule time each day for running, you'll find that you have to begin scheduling the rest of your responsibilities to a stricter time schedule as well. While this can be annoying at times, it will end up allowing for less room to procrastinate and will improve your time management skills overall.

You learn how to set goals and stick to them.

By having to put in months of training, you learn how to set goals and stick to them. Even though you may want to give up at times, running teaches you to push through the difficult moments and accomplish your goals.