And it’s a potentially positive identity crisis.
Throughout college, I ran two Turkey Trots in St. Paul, and two Goldy’s Runs at the UMN Twin Cities campus. None of those 5K races were completed without pauses to walk, and I don’t believe any of them were finished in faster than 35 minutes. I played baseball, which famously doesn’t involve much beyond sprinting. I never thought I’d catch this particular fitness bug.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran a sub-30 minute 5K in my neighborhood. Last Friday, I ran 5 miles on 0.75-mile intervals, with some walking between them. Running has materialized as the next addition to my Year of Fitness, stacking onto my workouts in Fitbod and coinciding with a diet shift that’s proven to be successful.
I’ve toyed with running on and off over the years. I spent several months in San Francisco grinding out 20 or 25 minutes on a treadmill at the university gym. It was fine. Uninspired. Boring. It never stuck.
Since committing to running outside and using interval training on my Garmin watch two months ago, I’ve made incredible strides1Hah, puns. in my running ability. The ensuing success required two mental adjustments:
- I can focus solely on my running and not compare it to others.
- I already walk thousands of steps each day. Why not earn some of them while running?
I no longer conceive of one mile as the longest feasible distance to run without stopping, and I look forward to my lunchtime jogs as much as I ever desired my lunchtime walks over the years. Running is no longer a terrible burden. Instead, it’s a great solo activity that helps my day feel complete.
I have no ambitions for running. I’m not attempting to train for a race of any particular length, besides an informal one-mile trial against my sisters that we’ve often discussed. Three or four times each week, I check how I’m feeling and decide what kind of running workout to attack: long intervals at a slower pace, or short intervals at a fast pace. I’m confident I can do either combination for at least 3 miles.
Running has, most importantly, opened up my own self-conception to believe in what’s possible with dogged determination. By competing against myself and seeing tangible improvement, I’m encouraged to keep going. I wouldn’t consider myself a runner quite yet—we’ll see how I handle winter—but it’s become a focal point of my 2025 theme, and that will keep it around for a while.
- 1Hah, puns.