My Running Story: A Tale of Transformation

Let me tell your a story. A story of how my life transformed through running.

The realization moment

It was around 5 o’clock in the morning. I was laying in bed after consuming lots of beers and marihuana. I didn’t pass out like I would normally do though. Instead, my heart was pumping like I was doing an all-out excercise. I panicked and got afraid something would go wrong because my heartbeat just wouldn’t calm down. At some point I convinced myself I was going to get a heart attack and decided to take action. I got out of my bed and hopped onto my bike to the nearest hospital. It was probably the fresh air that calmed me down, and when I noticed my heartrate dropped I decided to turn around. Back home I luckily fell asleep, without a heart attack. The next morning was different than other mornings, I knew I needed to change something.

Not your average endurance training

Back in the day, around five or six years ago, it wasn’t unusual for me to drink a lot of alcohol and smoke marihuana almost daily. I also did nothing in terms of physical excercise, except for walking to the grocery store (although being able to tolerate more drugs may count as some kind of endurance training). But the night of the panick attack changed something in me. I suddenly realized that my drug-abuse was a real problem and not just something innocent you experiment with if you are young. I was tired of feeling like crap after nights out, and at some point I started to smoke weed so regularly that oftem it made me feel like I was not actually participating in the real world. It made me question whether what I experienced was even real (you can imagine how this behavior didn’t make me a very reliable or productive person either).

Brand-attitude

I cannot recall exactly why I started to run, but somehow I did. I remember I went to the website of Puma and ordered some shoes and running clothes, solely because I liked the brand and its attitude. I’d never run before in my life but I remember that it felt pretty good. I especially liked my Puma shoes because they made me feel fast (I know, this doesn’t make much sense). This feeling also caused me to run too fast for what my body at the time was able to handle and resulted in quite some aches and small injuries.

Running as lifestyle

What started as an occasional leisure activity has become a significant element in my life. Through trial and error I found a way to run mostly injury-free and my body has become capable of handling well over 100 kilometers per week. I’m glad it can because running has become so much more than just a way to get some excercise. It has become my favorite way to start the day, it is a moment of meditation, a moment in which I don’t need any external stimuli. Just me and my legs that are moving me forward. Because I’m running quite consistently and do most of my runs on a relatively low heart rate, I am able to think and often get the clearest thoughts of the day during my runs. In other words, it’s hard to imagine what life was like without running consistently.

The physical struggle

This summer I read a book written by ultrarunner Dean Karnazes. There was one passage that especially resonated with me. Towards the end of his book Karnazes states that the reason running is such a popular sport, is the fact that life is void of physical struggle. Everything is so convenient nowadays and people are looking for a way to challenge themselves physically. This made so much sense to me and explained for a big part why I like to run, especially long distances. Running provides me with something I think I need to thrive. There are so much lessons in doing something that is physically challenging or uncomfortable. The perseverance that I achieve through running spreads to other areas of my life and it makes me more resilient.

Looking forward

While I have a lot of plans for the future of my personal running journey, I’ve arrived at a moment in which I don’t want to run solely for myself anymore. I want to spread the mental and physical benefits of running and my experience in how to stay healthy while doing it. After I discovered how much I enjoy running and to what extent my body is capable of enduring long distances, it feels like a natural effect to start using it for a greater good.