Leonard - I Hate Running and You Can Too: How to Get Started, Keep Going, and Make Sense of an Irrational Passion

I Hte Running
and
you can too

How to Get Started, Keep Going, and Make Sense of an Irrational Passion

Brendan Leonard

Artisan Books | New York

TO ANYONE WHO WONDERS IF THEY CAN GO A LITTLE FARTHER

Contents

I hate running. Frequently, actually. Usually three or four times a week.

I dont hate running the entire timethere are moments where I actually sort of enjoy it. When Im finished, I like having run. I just dont like doing it compared to doing other things, like eating pizza or taking naps, which are a lot more fun and a lot less effort.

I hate running dozens of miles every week and thousands of miles per year. I have hated it for 3 miles after work on a Tuesday around the park near my house, Ive hated it for 26.2 miles through New York City, Ive hated it for 100 miles straight in the mountains of North Carolina, and Ive hated it in Wyoming and Colorado on other occasions.

Im not a professional runner or even a consistent lifelong runnerI sort of rediscovered running in my midthirties through a curiosity about ultrarunning. Id spent hundreds of days in the mountains doing almost every other sport in my career as an adventure writer mountaineering, backcountry skiing, rock climbing, backpacking, cycling, hiking, bikepacking, and whitewater raftingbut Id only done a little bit of trail running. Id known about people who ran races longer than marathons31 miles, 50 miles, even 100 miles and longerand Id always wondered if I could too.

On my high school track team, I proved to be ineffective at running distances longer than 200 meters. After a few 400-meter-dash performances during which I believed it might be possible to actually vomit a lung, I told my coach, Four hundred meters is long distance, and he limited me to races 200 meters and under. I mostly gave up running after high school, choosing to instead take up smoking one pack of cigarettes every day for six years, which turned out to be a terrible idea. At twenty-six years old, I knew I had to quit smoking, so I signed up for a marathon, thinking training for a 26.2-mile race would finally inspire me to quit. It did. I finished the marathon and rewarded myself with a nine-year break from any sort of regular running. I stayed active doing everything else in the outdoors, including the occasional trail run, and finally scratched that could I finish an ultramarathon? itch in 2015, by signing up for a 50-kilometer race. At mile 26, I almost quit because of an excruciating pain in my left knee, but was able to walk, massage my IT band, jog, and then finally run to the finish line. Within two years of that race, I was lining up for a 100-miler (which I finishedbut barely).

Since then, Ive run dozens of ultramarathons and marathons and run thousands of miles. Ive spent time exploring the diversity of running, from the short weekday runs I do by myself to the New York City Marathon with 53,000 other people, to 100-mile sufferfests on mountain trails. I approach it like I do everything that requires effort and commitment, and I speak about the parallels between work and running to audiences whenever I can. I assure these people that if they hate running, thats okayI do too.

You might ask: Why do I do something I hate so much, so often? Thats a perfectly valid question. I guess as an adult I realized I had to do some sort of regular exercise for health and sanity, and running seemed to be the best option. Yes, I hate it most of the time, but maybe once during every run, I have a few seconds, or a minute or two, where I find myself thinking, You know, this isnt so bad.

Some might say Im a bit of a masochist. If I sat next to someone on an airplane and happened to tell them how much I run, and that person said, Wow, that sounds like a dumb hobby, I would respect their opinion because I share that exact opinion the majority of the time.

In all the races Ive run, though, Ive noticed something: A lot of people run. Are they, like me, simply masochists? Probably a little bit, but thats not it. We all run at different speeds and were different shapes and different sizes, but we all have the same itch, and we all scratch that itch with running. Im certainly not going to speak for every other runner, but I will say that knowing there are others with this same irrational passion for running long distances makes me feel less alone while doing this thing that I hate but kind of like.

Since the running boom of the 1970s and 80s, running has remained one of the most popular forms of exercise in the worldthis is according to FitBit data we now have access to, not just people saying Running? Sure, I run. So why do we run? Well, running is cheaper than buying home gym equipment, for one thing. And getting set up is a lot less complicated. You dont need anything other than a pair of running shoes (and some people would argue you dont even need them), and you can run almost anywhere. You can run as long or as short as you want, as fast or as slow as you want, by yourself or with friends, at five a.m. or midnight. Running gives you time alone with your thoughts and gives you the freedom to have one thing in your life that you do just for you. And you can start running when youre six years old or sixty-five.

The other thing I have noticed about those of us with a passion for running: When you show up at a marathon, or a 10K or 5K, most of the other people therelike meare not in danger of qualifying for the Olympics any time soon. Sure, a few dozen or a couple hundred people at the front of the pack in any race are uniquely fast athletes, but the rest of us are regular folks who have jobs and families and mortgages, and we all have this weird hobby of running as far as we can. We train for weeks or months to attempt a distance that many people (including ourselves) might think is irrational for anyone who is not getting chased by bears or lions or other megafauna.

To call running fun would be a misuse of the word. Running can be enjoyable. Running can be rejuvenating. But in a pure sense of the word, running is not fun.

Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

I suspect most of us runners have a complicated relationship with runningyou could call it a love-hate relationship, but I think its more nuanced than that. If running were a person I was dating, I would definitely have broken up with that person long ago. But running is more like a weird friend I keep hanging out with and who is good for me in a really strange waydespite being pretty unlikable most of the time. In 2017, I started spelling out this love-hate relationship as I HTE RUNNING , so I could put it on a T-shirt and communicate my feelings in the most direct and accurate way possible.

Everybody should try running. And when I say try it, I mean do it long enough that you get through the part where it sucks and into the fleeting but noticeable part where you actually think its fun. Because during every run, for a few seconds or a few minutes, you have a moment where it feels really good. You forget about the discomfort and you find rhythm, maybe some grace, and a feeling of strength and confidence as you move as well as youll ever move doing anything. And thats one of the best reasons to run.

Lets be real here: If youre not late for a bus or a flight, running more than a few hundred feet is pretty irrational. We have dozens of highly efficient ways to travel, and if youre traveling by foot, walking is usually more than sufficient to get the job done.