When I discovered running at age 13, my teenage brain rejoiced. Run more miles, get faster times. Finally, a sport that made sense.
At last, after failing at more complex athletic endeavors like soccer and volleyball, I’d found a pursuit with a perfect one-to-one ratio of input to output. For the next 20 years, I behaved as if more meant better. And I ran myself straight into a multi-year bout of injury, illness, and burnout.
I approached life in much the same way—and with similar results. The sport of running, as most people learn long before I did, isn’t just a matter of ignoring pain, upping effort, and eschewing rest. It was never the perfectly mathematical formula I’d imagined as a teen.
Running is incredibly nuanced, and it can be complicated to find your groove—that elusive sweet spot where you’re pushing your limits without flirting with injury or losing sight of the fun. But learning to navigate that complexity has taught me more about the nuances of life than a “more is more” approach ever could. Here are seven things I’ve learned about running that sound suspiciously like life advice.
Contrary to popular belief, fitness gains don’t happen during training; muscle repair and rebuilding happen during periods of rest. Studies show that taking more rest days can make you faster. It can also make you more productive and present in your regular life.
It took me a long time to learn that extra mileage doesn’t mean more fitness, just as later nights at the office don’t necessarily mean additional output. Heed the law of diminishing returns and work smarter—not harder. It’s easy to put pressure on yourself to execute a high-quality workout, especially when you’re short on time and feel like you have to make every session count.
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