Learning to run at 31
When was the last time you woke up before dawn to go for a run? I certainly never had. For 31 years, running shoes had no business showing up before sunrise. And yet there I was. Half-awake, pulling on running clothes in the dark, a little late for a 6 a.m. session with the JustShowUp running club.
What actually alarmed me wasn’t the time, but the fact that I wasn’t looking for an excuse to hit the snooze button. Until then, running was something other people made me do. Coach called it conditioning. My mom called it cardio. Basketball at least had the decency to call one of its running drills “suicides.”
Then I signed up for Hyrox.
The part I underestimated
A few weeks earlier, I got budol’ed into signing up for Hyrox in Seoul this November. I knew what I was getting into, at least broadly. Sled pushes. Sled pulls. Rowing. SkiErgs. Burpees. Lunges. Wall balls. And, crucially, a clock.
Even exercises I usually hate become oddly exciting once you put a timer on them. What I hadn’t realized was that running was the glue holding it all together. Eight kilometres of it, broken into one-kilometre stretches between every station.
I’ve spent years in the gym and most of my life playing basketball. I honestly thought I was “fit” enough that years of inconsistent “bro-split” training would translate well. Turns out, running doesn’t really care how much you bench.
My first attempt at what runners call an “easy run” made that obvious almost immediately. My breathing felt far too heavy for a pace that wasn’t particularly fast. So I checked my watch, convinced I’d been out there much longer than I had.
Four minutes.
I laughed between strides. I genuinely couldn’t understand how people willingly did this for an hour. Then it hit me: Running wasn’t just cardio you endured. It was a skill I hadn’t yet learned. I didn’t know how to pace myself. I didn’t know what “easy” was supposed to feel like. And I had no idea why every runner I met suddenly wanted to talk about Zone 2.
So, like every hobby I’ve ever fallen into, I dove headfirst into the rabbit hole that is Hyrox.
Down the rabbit hole
Zone 2 led to heart-rate zones, VO2 max, cadence, recovery, heel drop, stack height, daily trainers, and carbon-plated race shoes. A few weeks earlier, most of those words meant nothing to me. Now my TikTok algorithm seems convinced I am training for the Olympics.
Then came the gear. First came a white Garmin Forerunner 165, then ASICS Novablast 6s. Even the socks came marked “L” and “R,” which felt familiar. Over a decade ago, Nike Elite socks were practically a badge of honor for serious hoopers. Apparently, running had its own version.
So somewhere along the way, lined running shorts, Dri-FIT tops, breathable hats, and lightweight sunglasses joined the rotation, whether I needed them or not. And more concerningly, I started checking my resting heart rate the way people check their phones, and somehow developed opinions about cushioning I didn’t know I was capable of having.
I’ve always been a Nike person. Checks over stripes. It started with the OG Nike Zoom Kobe 3 in the “Orca” colorway and somehow became part of my personality. Running complicated that loyalty. People who knew far more than I did kept steering me toward ASICS, so for once, I listened. I ended up in the Novablast 6s in the “platinum” colorway and, inconveniently for my brand loyalty, I really like them.
Apparently, even learning to run came with an identity crisis. The humbling part was that I could buy all the right things and still be bad at running. No watch could fix my pacing. No shoe could build my endurance.
Buying all of it was easier than learning to run. That hasn’t stopped me from buying more, just in case.
Learning to slow down
Running runs on backwards logic. As a beginner, your instinct is to push harder. Every experienced runner tells you to do the opposite: slow down. Stop chasing the pace on your watch. Let people pass you. Learn what easy actually feels like. Kill your ego.
For someone used to measuring progress in added weight and extra reps, restraint can feel like the opposite of progress. I have to force myself to slow down, and I still check my watch too often. There are runs where “easy” feels suspiciously difficult.
But I’m improving, and running no longer feels like punishment. I look forward to it now, which is probably why that 4:45 a.m. alarm didn’t feel as ridiculous as it should have, considering I once thought a 9 a.m. gym session was early.
I’d only met a couple of people from JustShowUp before that morning, which made showing up feel more intimidating than the run itself. At a gym, I know the drill: put me around a rack of weights or on a basketball court and I’m locked in. A running club was different. I wasn’t sure where to stand, whether to introduce myself or just nod, or which pace group I belonged in.
Then we started running, and the awkwardness disappeared into the distance. There were kilometers, conversations, and eventually, the satisfaction of finishing something I would’ve avoided a few weeks earlier.
Becoming a beginner again
At 31, I’ve had enough time to build a life around things I already know how to do. On a basketball court, it still feels like I can turn back the clock. I know the rooms where I don’t have to prove that I belong.
Running isn’t one of them. Not yet.
I think adulthood encourages us to avoid situations like that. We gravitate toward the things we’re already good at because competence is comfortable. Starting from zero means accepting that, for a while, you’re going to be slow.
Running has put me back at zero. There’s no past version of me to compete with because that version never really ran. Running can be intimidating, but that’s also what makes it surprisingly forgiving. You can start slow. You can be bad at it. You just have to keep showing up.
I’d forgotten how satisfying that can be: to improve a little, then a little more, until a distance that once sounded ridiculous becomes manageable and the thing you used to avoid starts shaping your week.
I still wouldn’t call myself a runner. Ask me again after Seoul. For now, I’m more interested in what happens before that answer. A few weeks ago, running was the part of Hyrox I was worried about most.
Yesterday, my alarm went off at 4:45 in the morning. I got up because I didn’t want to miss it. Maybe that’s not proof I’ve become a runner. But for the first time in 31 years, I actually want to find out.
Running runs on backwards logic. As a beginner, your instinct is to push harder. Every experienced runner tells you to do the opposite: slow down. Stop chasing the pace on your watch. Let people pass you. Learn what easy actually feels like. Kill your ego.
