As a teenager, running was my sport. I ran 3 nights a week for training, with a race every weekend. Most of the races were cross-country, giving me a weekly hit of the beautiful Irish countryside and lungfuls of fresh air. I fondly recall the community that was built around these racing events. Even in races with as few as 3 participants, supporters would hang around and cheer on each individual.
When I started college and moved to Dublin, running fell between the cracks. I became more interested in socialising than doing much concerning fitness. I still went to the gym, mostly out of vanity, but anything cardio-related was no longer a part of my repertoire. This trend continued as I graduated from college and entered the corporate world.
After 6.5 years working as a full-time software engineer, I started to feel the effects of days deskbound, occasionally getting out of breath even when climbing a flight of stairs. I was finally motivated to make a change when my younger brother indicated his intention to run in the 2024 Barcelona Marathon. Capitalising on this inspiration, I decided to restart my running journey in December 2023.
Here’s how I got back to a level of fitness I am now fairly proud of.
Month 1 & 2 - humble beginnings
I was feeling quite intimidated to start back running. I knew I would have to start small so as not to get demotivated. Especially since my last experience with running was competing at a decent level in club competition. I also knew I wanted to try to make this a part of my lifestyle, and not just a short-term attempt to get fit.
I had recently completed reading Atomic Habits by James Clear and wanted to try to apply his rules for creating good habits to help me make running a part of my life again. Very briefly these rules (or laws) are:
- Make it obvious
- Make it attractive
- Make it easy
- Make it satisfying
My goal was to first build the habit of running regularly, and only then once it felt automatic would I start to build up the distances or pay any attention to split times or specific training techniques (easier said than done in the age of Strava).
Firstly, to make it obvious, I used what James calls ‘habit stacking’ to link the new habit to an existing habit already a part of my day. For me, this was finishing up work in my home office. I would start to close my laptop, tidy my desk, and immediately change into my running gear. Of course, I wasn’t running every single day, but I would change into my running gear every day after work, and if not going for a run do some stretches or something just for 5 minutes to acknowledge the fact I changed for a reason. This did feel odd for a few weeks, but eventually, it just became second nature, which was the goal.
Secondly, to make it attractive, I used another technique of James’ called ’temptation bundling’, which is simply pairing an attractive action with the action I am trying to implement. For me, this was allowing myself 30 minutes to play video games after heading out for a run. Again, it feels a bit weird to hover a carrot for yourself that you have the free will to take at any time, but I certainly felt it helped, because after some of the more unpleasant runs I did tie in a nice feeling of chilling out with some video games, so the negative mood from a difficult run did not last long.
For making it easy, I found the shortest possible loop around the block near my house, which was only 2km, and set that as my maximum run distance no matter how energised I was feeling. For the first month, I keenly felt my lack of fitness on each run. More than a few times I was not feeling particularly excited to head out. But what made things so much easier was knowing I only had to do 2km. This fact got me out of the house the majority of times at the beginning of this journey.
Finally, making it satisfying was probably the easiest part. I decided to start using Strava again to track my runs. Having a small community of friends who are regular runners giving me ‘kudos’ for each run I completed was satisfying. It brought me back to the feeling of participating in the cross country races as a teenager where a small group of supporters would cheer you on around the course.
There’s no beating around the bush though, the first month or two of running is hard work. It can feel like you’re not making much progress. But each run banked, no matter how painful, felt like a step in the right direction. Eventually, you can feel a sense of momentum as you start to collect a few dozen runs on your belt.
Month 3 & 4 - commit to an event
At this point I’d started to feel a little more comfortable in my running, not feeling exasperated at the sight of a slight hill. I could feel my cardiorespiratory system was starting to adapt and show signs of improved fitness. I was up to running around 3 times a week and had increased some of my runs to around 5km. I felt I was ready to start trying to increase my distances bit by bit. I followed the age-old wisdom of only increasing my weekly distance by 10% per week. So one week at a time I would extend my runs slightly, to the point I was doing around 15km per week. This is nothing groundbreaking, but it felt really good to be consistently moving that distance every week.
As my confidence grew, I decided it was time to commit to an event. I didn’t go crazy. I just chose a local 5km event organised down by the coast in Sandymount. I didn’t have any goal in the race, other than to give it my best and see how I got on. I jogged to the event as a warmup and was struck by the atmosphere even for a seemingly small local event. There were probably a few hundred runners hanging around, stretching and warming up. It was a nice atmosphere and gave me a great rush to be back in such an environment.
I had plenty of experience with the fact that you always tend to run quicker in races, just due to the nature of having other runners to pace against and enjoying the small target of trying to pass the person just in front of you. I shocked myself and finished with a time of 24:20. This was another huge boost to my confidence as I hadn’t tried an all-out run at 5km in many years, so to be able to come in under 25 minutes was such a joy.
Even though it can be very intimidating to participate in an organised running event, if you do your best not to put pressure on yourself and try to treat it as just a regular training run, you are very likely to be pleasantly surprised to find out what you can achieve with the boost of running in a group with supporters cheering you on. This personal win fed my motivation in the coming weeks to continue my training and strive for new heights.
Month 5 & 6 - setbacks and the path forward
At this stage I was in a good rhythm of things and felt running was a part of my lifestyle. Getting out the door for runs was far easier, partly due to improved fitness, and partly due to nicer weather. At this point, I wanted a longer-term goal to track towards, so I signed up for the Dublin Half Marathon in September. I felt motivated by such a lofty goal, as I had never run nearly that far ever in my life.
With this goal in mind, I again started to increase my distances and stumbled upon the inevitable occasional setback of a minor injury. My left calf had started to twist up in pain after some of my longer runs and it didn’t seem to be getting better. After a visit to the physio, I got some strengthening exercises and was advised to ease up on the running for a week or two, to allow my calf strength to build up a bit more. This was a bit frustrating at a time when I felt I was getting into the swing of things. But there’s always going to be things like this that slow things down, it’s a part of the journey.
So this is the point I’ve made it to. I’ve gotten myself to a point where I’m decently fit, and notice it in my day-to-day life. I’ve brought running back into my life as a cornerstone of my weeks. And it’s something I get a lot of pleasure out of and see it staying in my life for the foreseeable future. I’m optimistic once I recover from this minor injury that my progress will continue to flourish.
Why run
Finally, reflecting on how far I’ve come in just a few months, I wonder why I chose running. Of all the sports there are available in modern society. Why something as simple as jumping from foot to foot repetitively? I feel a deep connection to running that I believe is at the core of being human. It gives me the same feeling I get when I build a fire, sit looking into the flames, and breathe in the smell of the burning wood. It feels ancestral. There’s a lot of joy found in connecting to such simplicity, in a time where complexity is all around, especially in the life of a software engineer. That’s at the core of why I chose this specific sport. So I’m hoping that through this sport I’ll uncover a deeper connection to what it means to be human and to better understand my body and mind.