How I Became Inspired By The Very Thing I Despised The Most

I’ve always hated running. I know that sounds a little ridiculous coming from a former soccer player and the writer of 'happy healthy karis', but hear me out.

Running is largely a mental sport– as long as you can convince yourself that you’re doing fine and you can keep going, you can for the most part. I have always been my biggest hater, so I almost never could convince myself that I was fine, but instead that I couldn’t keep going. The actual activity was something that I knew I could physically accomplish, proven through my years of soccer.

Senior year of high school, I hated the way I looked so much that I decided to adopt running into my weekly routine. I heard that running made you skinnier, and I felt like I was out of options (Running because you hate yourself is not exactly the best way to partake in the sport, I've come to learn). Once I got over this stage in my life, I stopped running out of fear of relapsing into this mentally malicious headspace.

You may recall one of my previous posts Stop Exercising– Start Training. that I wrote in light of the new year.

In this post, I highlighted the difference between exercising and training. Exercising to me, meant going through the motions and doing what I could to just lose the weight. Training, to me, was setting goals, getting after them, working to be better and stronger.

These are not two perfect processes, however. It is possible to be someone who trains and through the monotony of routine, becomes someone who exercises. It is equally possible to be someone who exercises but becomes someone who trains through a developed love for sport. The two are easily tangled up in each other, though not everyone falls victim to this inconsistency.

I wish that I could say I was someone who consistently trains, but I run on inspiration. I thrive off of motivational videos. The moment that I lose inspiration, or feel that I have made no progress at all, I only keep going to the gym simply out of habit.

Randomly one night, I mentioned to a friend that I was burnt out. I had nothing to write about because I write when I’m inspired, and I was so incredibly uninspired that I was thinking about giving up my blog altogether.

He suggested doing a challenge together, the idea being that when we push ourselves to experiment with random ideas, we will be able to reflect on these experiences and come out of it with something new.

So, we decided to run a certain amount of miles within a month. I set a kind-of-high-but-probably-achievable goal of 5 miles. The most I had ever ran in one go was 5 miles, but that was way back in senior year, the year I learned to detest fitness.

Knowing that I may be bringing this feeling back into my life was honestly nerve-wracking. This goal loomed over me like the shadow of a gigantic hot air balloon. But, knowing that someone else knew what I had committed and was going through it with me, I still went after this goal. Not to better myself, but because I said I would.

I was training in admittedly the flimsiest sense of the word. I had no motivation of my own to really accomplish anything.

Because I abhorred running so much before, I couldn’t properly train and really get any better because the whole time I was just thinking about how much I hated running. I previously had no larger goal in running than to get in shape for soccer. Once my reign with the sport ended, running was no more than a tedious and exhausting task.

So, I took a different approach. I didn’t need to have a time restraint on my runs anymore, so I removed that aspect from my training. And this changed everything. I decided to just turn on a podcast, and tune out while keeping my body moving. I guess in a way, I was being a hypocrite because I was hoping to really just go through the motions and hopefully gain something good as a result (exercising). The exact method of fitness that I discouraged in the first place.

Taking a break from my training mindset turned out to be pretty good for me. Running at a relatively slow and steady pace, my first long run this July went beyond expectations. I was aiming for 2 miles, but I ended up with 3.6. By turning running into a recreational activity rather than something I constantly needed to improve in, I discovered the joy in it.

I wasn’t pushing myself to go any faster or slower, but just going with the flow.

I never would have guessed that through exercising, I would desire to train.

The end of the month quickly approached, and after a week of no running in San Fransisco, I realized that I only had a few days left to accomplish my goal. So, I did it. I ran 5 miles that day, each mile faster than the one before. I ended my last mile an entire minute faster than my first. I felt like I was flying.

However, the last 2 miles brought me back to earth and reminded me that running was a difficult task, as I started to run out of breath and my legs began to ache. Instead of beating myself up over being tired and running too slow, I just kept going. I was surprised, to say the least, to find that these 2 miles were my fastest in this run.

You mean, I don’t have to mentally abuse myself when I don’t feel the way that I want to, and things could actually turn out even better than OK?

The way I felt, my motivation to be fit, my drive to be better… that was all me. I didn’t watch a video and decide it was grind time. I did have a great friend who pushed me in the right direction, but it was ultimately me who rolled with the punches and came out stronger.

For once, I was my own inspiration. And that felt pretty freaking good. Keep on keeping on, guys. Go into challenges headfirst– if your heart isn’t there at first, it’ll find its way. 

xo,

Karis