On Running

I started running kinda sorta at the beginning of 2024. I'm still running now. And while I'm not good at it.. It feels great to simply get better at something.

While thinking through writing this, I think before 2024, the only time I spent any time running was when I was a kid. I was never amazing at running and never really knew anyone that was super excited about it as I was growing up. My exposure to running was almost exclusively through TV and maybe seeing the local school cross-country team running through town for practice.

When COVID came, my wife started running more and I occassionally started joining her. At that time, running just one or two miles with that small distance was absolutely exhausting. Running wasn't something I enjoyed: there was no "endorphin high", I never had great cardio, and I was so mediocre that it felt personally embarassing. Really the only thing that I really enjoyed about it was the praise at the end for being there are and doing it anyway.

Over the span of the next few years I ran a tiny amount -- though I have to give credit that it was more than I ever did before COVID. In this period I ran a 5K distance perhaps a handful of times and it felt like my absolute limit at the time. I think the internal thing that already felt nice was "A year ago I couldn't do this. Today I can." As silly as it sounds, 5K felt like at least some kind of small hill I had sumittted, some kind of small victory that I had made it this far.

Fast forward to February 2024, I ran in my first 5K which was probably super chill for everyone else there. I was happy to have run and tried my best and to have felt motivated to pass people for the first time. 2024 continued and I did a little more 5K running than the years prior. Not a ton, but the total volume was very slowly increasing.

万米

This year, my wife and I both signed up for a local 10K run, like 7 months in advance. I had never ran 10K. While I knew it was something I could eventually be capable of, at the beginning of the year I knew I could not do it yet. I began running 5K at least once a week this year. One afternoon I had decided I was going to try and run 10K distance, and I actually did it! But I also could barely walk up and down stairs for like two days. It probably didn't help that where we live has a lot of hills. 😂

I think at this time I also came to read a bit of research on how running (and cardio in general) are linked with reduced chances for heart diseases and a number of other issues. Even if running was something I didn't enjoy much in the moment, I could feel better knowing that it has health benefits.

The last two months leading up to our 10K race, in addition to a 5K during the week I ran a 10K distance every weekend around the lake. I even ran in the rain, which I used to think was a funny/obsessive thing for runners to do. The reality is: running in a small amount of rain is actually really nice. Several nice things happened during these practice runs:

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10K was something I knew from experience was hard for me. It became something that was still hard, but I knew I could reliably do it.
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I started to get a tiny bit faster. I started to understand how to better control pace and breathing to avoid becoming exhausted.
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At the lake where I run early in the morning, I started to have enough mental space during running to appreciate the birds, the morning air, people rowing in the lake, other people running.
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I realized there are plenty of people that are clearly running not because they love it, nor are they fast, or even running with friends. While I don't know their individual reasons, there are plenty of people running despite it being clearly very difficult. My struggle with running is not unique.
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After running 10K, I was tired and hungry for breakfast, but it was no longer "Oh my god I have to lie down, I feel done for the day" levels of exhaustion.

Probably the most important thing though, was that after my runs, I had a cheerleader of a wife who gave me encouragement. When something occassionally hurt afterwards, she'd suggest things that she knew could help. When I PB'd she'd tell me "Oh my god that's awesome!". I'm not sure I could have continued without the encouragement.

The 10K came. It was definitely the largest run I had been in. I wasn't racing for any kind of rank, prize, or anything. This was something I knew I was simply going to try my best at. The "glory" here for me was simply doing something that I knew earlier that year felt impossible. Because of an injury my wife wasn't in the full run, but she ran with me the final bit just being 150% enthusiastic and supportive. She has a lot of great one liners. "There's only 5 minutes left. You can do anything for 5 minutes!"

Two years prior I had been at the finish line for when she completed this same race, feeling like 'Wow that seems like such a long distance', and now I was completing it.

The 10K run completed two weekends ago. This last weekend, a new feeling came to me. I didn't need to practice for any race coming up but I still went and did the 10K weekend run.

So what's the point?

I've come to find that there are plenty of amazing runners. I'm not one of them and that is okay. There are plenty of people like me too. There is value in doing things for yourself, not necessarily in some effort to become "the best" in it.

We all have hard things in our lives that we'd rather skip. We all find ways to justify why they're worth doing anyway. Besides the health benefits, I'm driven externally by someone that I feel like genuinely wants to see me succeed, and also feel a very gradual sense of progress as time goes on. Both are important. I think we all naturally need at least one other person to share our success and failures with in anything we do. Tracking my effort let's me look back and see how far I've come and how I'm improving, even if it is somewhat secondary.

"I am not a runner."

I tell people this when they ask if this was my first 10K or if I'm joining the local running club. They're all very nice people, but I still feel like an alien, the only person in "this running thing" there not in love with running itself. Some of the people there are aliens in their own right, running ultramarathons, back-to-back marathons, etc. It's unreal what they are capable of.

My wife recently asked me "So do you like running now?"". I had to tell her honestly, no. "Well, does it at least suck less than it used to?" This is definitely true. We had a good laugh.

While it's true that I feel like I'm "not a runner", I am happy with my progress. I think I will keep chasing the feeling that today I can do a little more than I could yesterday. It's enough.

Somewhere in the next year I think I am going to try and run a half-marathon.