I hate running it's awesome
I’m not sure why I keep trying to get into running. It’s never worked out for me. I was promised guilt-free eating, health benefits, a smug sense of moral superiority, and a runner’s high. I eat more but that’s about it.
Cardio fitness generally isn’t a limiting factor for my lifestyle. Other than the time my girlfriend’s elevator broke and I had to walk up 19 flights of stairs1.
I’m not a running kind of guy. My 23andme results back it up. I have the genetic potential of an elite powerlifter - not my fault I’m bad at running. Watching a treadmill count down is like water torture. The worst possible video game. Everything hurts. Running sucks. Why am I doing this again? So my past running attempts failed.
But something had to change when I realized I’d gained 15 pounds working at Rippling2. I decided to try again.
Slower
I was complaining about running to a hardcore marathoner friend, and he introduced me to the concept of Zone 2 training, which focuses on long, slow runs at 60-75% of max heart rate, to build endurance. And at the beginning, this means going slow. I mean really slow. I was getting smoked by grandmas with strollers down JFK Drive.
As it turns out, the body uses different energy sources and different muscle fibers at different intensity levels. And you have different amounts of these energy sources - 50-100x the calories in your body are stored as fat vs. carbohydrates, but they convert much more slowly, so carbs (glycogen) gets used for high intensity work.
Low intensity workouts stimulate Type I muscle fibers, which help you get more efficient at using fat, for longer, and save the limited glycogen for later. But interestingly you also get benefits at high intensity because Type I fibers help clear lactate. This reduces the feeling of “the burn”. More here if you’re interested.
This means the main way to get better at running is not by trying harder, but doing more miles. But it’s slow. You can’t ramp up your mileage too quickly. Your body’s not used to it. So you need to run slowly. Multiple times a week. And ramp up gradually. Your body eventually learns. As you plod along.
Hacks
At first this discovery was DEEPLY FRUSTRATING.
I prefer to find tricks and hacks to do things faster and more efficiently. I don’t think zone 2 training really counts as a hack. It’s like you asked someone how to get better at writing, and they told you to sit down and write for an hour every day. The preference for efficiency is what attracted me to the cult of HIIT, which promises fitness in a few hours per week. My usual workout involves a gay man yelling over club music for me to work harder, while doing something different every minute3. I don’t have to think, and I hate slowing down.
In high school I had the concept of grade-to-work ratio, which, for example, led me to not do any of my AP Bio homework. Midterm scores could reset our overall grades, and I was pretty sure I could cram it. My teacher, understandably concerned with my (pre-midterm) F in the class, called my parents, lectures ensued, I did homework, took the midterm, and got my A4.
This strategy was well adapted for school, but is pretty badly adapted for life. It’s fun to discover an arb or hack a system, but most of life's best things require steady persistence rather than cleverness. You can't shortcut your way to meaningful achievements. Being a good partner or friend, staying healthy, even developing a craft — these all require regular consistent effort.
There are marginal ways to improve at running that don’t require you to run, like the right shoes, nutrition, and sleep. But the main input is still consistent miles. No adrenaline, no ways to transmute money into results, just the grind.
Showing up and not hating it
Running slow is harder. Just when you're vibing, feeling good, outpacing that grandma we mentioned earlier, your watch beeps, telling you you’re working too hard. What the fuck? Working too hard? And so you slow down to a pace that’d feel uncomfortable in the Tenderloin. And it feels terrible. But this is steady plodding lets you add miles without crashing at mile 2.
And you just have to show up. I’ve tried a lot of things. Out and back naturey routes, candy, procrastinating on more important things, lying to myself that I just need to show up. Though I’m not at the cutting edge yet.
This doesn’t even seem to get better as you get better at running. The author Haruki Murakami has this amazing quote in his memoir, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”:
“Once, I interviewed the Olympic runner Toshihiko Seko… I asked him, “Does a runner at your level ever feel like you’d rather not run today, like you don’t want to run and would rather just sleep in?” He stared at me and then, in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, “Of course. All the time!”
The you’re-never-done quality of exercise used to bother me. I recently found a good framing: toothbrushing vs. diploma problems. Once you’re done with a diploma, you’re done. You don’t have to do anything after that, no matter what the fundraising people say. But you have to brush your teeth every day. So you might as well learn to enjoy brushing your teeth.
Changing the framing from “I must suffer. Existence is suffering. I am condemned to pushing my meat sack up Hayes Hill like Sisyphus because otherwise I’ll get fatter and also lose the $100 I spent on a half marathon” to “I have the privilege of developing my bodily strength and beauty to the highest limit” was very helpful. Both are true. But one of them makes it easier to put on my shoes.
I’m still very mediocre, and have a long way to go before my first marathon, but I’m happy that I’ve found a way for running to be fun instead of painful.
I’m not telling you to start running. It hasn’t made me a better person. I’ve never gotten the high, and the smugness is just to get likes on the internet I promise. But if you want to get into it for whatever reason5, and haven’t gotten it to stick, going slow to go further has worked for me.
Classic San Francisco: https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/14/man-accused-of-stripping-naked-flooding-high-rise-to-face-felony-charge/
I stress ate a disgusting number of fruit snacks and fig bars, and would scavenge unclaimed lunches at 8PM like a New York pizza rat.
*therapist voice*: Have you ever thought about how this relates to your career choices?
I will die on the hill that my grades would’ve been fine, but I appreciate you still, Mrs. Ingram.
For example, you’re 31, starting to get fat, and don’t play golf or have kids yet.