Menu
summer 2025
Chapter 5
Thursday, July 24th
I have decided to quit.
I do not want to run anymore.
As I’ve been looking at the writing I have done so far, a lot of it is about how much I hate running. Not a great sign.
I really hoped I would get into a rhythm and things would get easier. That has yet to happen.
One of my original goals with this project was that I wanted to see if I could convince myself to like running. I have never hated running more in my life.
Another was that I hoped running would help with my anxiety. There, I’d say that I had more mixed results. To be very honest with you, this July has been a very bad month for my mental health. While anxiety is usually my biggest problem, this month has been a lot more about intense sadness and dysregulation. It is possible that trimming back the weeds of my anxiety has allowed other dark flowers to bloom in the garden of my mind. But I have also continued to have real issues with anxiety over the last month, so I’m not really convinced that running helped my anxiety much, if at all. What I can say for certain is that there has never been a point during this hard month that I thought, “Well, at least I have a run coming up soon. I bet I’ll feel better after that.”
I told my therapist that I couldn’t tell if running helped my anxiety because I’ve been feeling too miserable all month and he responded, “Oh, and making yourself do something you hate hasn’t helped?”
***
Saturday, July 26th
For a little bit today, I thought that it might be a fun idea to go through the mistakes I made in this project. I have decided not to. Something about it feels morbid and I worry it wouldn’t be any fun to read.
That said, there is a part of me that keeps imagining some runner reading this and thinking to themselves, “No wonder this guy doesn’t like running, he did absolutely everything wrong.” And that part of me is so desperate to tell that perfect runner, “I know!”
My biggest mistake is that I should have reached out to the runners in my life at the beginning of this process and gotten all of their advice. I wish that I was someone who could ask for help like that. And I’m not sure why I can’t. But I know that when I think about the different ways this inability has impacted my life, this running project is a tiny blip.
Here I am…still listing my mistakes.
Like I said, I’m desperate.
If you know me and you know what I’ve done wrong, please don’t tell me. I would hate to get advice on how to do this better. Because that advice implies that I would ever try to take up running again in my entire fucking life. But if your advice makes sense to me–if I can see why it would be helpful and why it might lead to a different outcome next time–then I might actually try to run again. Which I do not want to do! I want to break up with running. I want to walk away clean. I want to go no contact. I want to have brunch in five years and, when someone asks how running is doing, say, “Running? God, I haven’t thought about Running in years. For all I know, Running’s dead in a ditch somewhere.” And then everyone at the table will laugh, because we all hate running!
If you know me and you know what I’ve done wrong, keep it to yourself! If you love running, that’s great. But when you see me, just say, “Sorry you had such an awful time running. It isn’t for everyone.” Or better yet, “You want to know a little secret? I have always hated running. In quitting, you have done what I have been afraid to do. In many ways, you are the bravest person I have ever met.”
***
Wednesday, July 30th
Now that I have quit trying to run three miles, I feel this immediate urge to find some meaningful conclusion to the story. Some part of me believes that if I could learn something important about movement or about what it means to quit, then it would transform this failure into something valuable. But in a real way, running isn’t valuable or invaluable–just like the value of a success is dependent on the value of the goal in the first place.
As tempting as it is, I am hesitant to make my takeaway from this experience that running is stupid. I am happy for my takeaway to be that running isn’t for me, but I do not want to dismiss all of the runners I know who get something valuable out of that miserable process.
Because while part of me wants to look to the birds and say, “Wouldn’t it be better to bring movement into our lives organically? Rather than allot thirty minutes of discrete jogging after sitting at a desk all day?” I also know that most of us don’t have that flexibility. Heck, I don’t have that flexibility. I’m not a bird. I’m an American. If I don’t work 40 hours a week, I’ll die.
But at the end of the day, the biggest reason I am resistant is that I don’t want to seem petty. Ending this project by talking about prioritizing organic movement over structured running feels a little bit like taking my ball and going home. Ten years of organized sports have drilled into me the value of sportsmanship. I want to shake running’s hand and tell it “good game.” I want to show the crowd of parents that I have accepted my loss with grace. And in return, I want to be taken to a Mongolian barbecue in a strip mall as a prize for my display of maturity.
***
Saturday, August 2nd
Today, a couple friends came over and we made bubbles in the park. While we brought some homemade bubble wands, we mostly ended up using our bare hands. If you create a ring with your fingers and then dip your hand into a mixing bowl full of soapy water, you might be amazed what you can do. After the bubbles, we all went to a movie. Walking home in the sweet summer night, T sighed, “Wow, this has been really nice.”
And all day, I kept thinking, “Thank god I don’t have to run.”
I have decided to quit.
I do not want to run anymore.
As I’ve been looking at the writing I have done so far, a lot of it is about how much I hate running. Not a great sign.
I really hoped I would get into a rhythm and things would get easier. That has yet to happen.
One of my original goals with this project was that I wanted to see if I could convince myself to like running. I have never hated running more in my life.
Another was that I hoped running would help with my anxiety. There, I’d say that I had more mixed results. To be very honest with you, this July has been a very bad month for my mental health. While anxiety is usually my biggest problem, this month has been a lot more about intense sadness and dysregulation. It is possible that trimming back the weeds of my anxiety has allowed other dark flowers to bloom in the garden of my mind. But I have also continued to have real issues with anxiety over the last month, so I’m not really convinced that running helped my anxiety much, if at all. What I can say for certain is that there has never been a point during this hard month that I thought, “Well, at least I have a run coming up soon. I bet I’ll feel better after that.”
I told my therapist that I couldn’t tell if running helped my anxiety because I’ve been feeling too miserable all month and he responded, “Oh, and making yourself do something you hate hasn’t helped?”
***
Saturday, July 26th
For a little bit today, I thought that it might be a fun idea to go through the mistakes I made in this project. I have decided not to. Something about it feels morbid and I worry it wouldn’t be any fun to read.
That said, there is a part of me that keeps imagining some runner reading this and thinking to themselves, “No wonder this guy doesn’t like running, he did absolutely everything wrong.” And that part of me is so desperate to tell that perfect runner, “I know!”
My biggest mistake is that I should have reached out to the runners in my life at the beginning of this process and gotten all of their advice. I wish that I was someone who could ask for help like that. And I’m not sure why I can’t. But I know that when I think about the different ways this inability has impacted my life, this running project is a tiny blip.
Here I am…still listing my mistakes.
Like I said, I’m desperate.
If you know me and you know what I’ve done wrong, please don’t tell me. I would hate to get advice on how to do this better. Because that advice implies that I would ever try to take up running again in my entire fucking life. But if your advice makes sense to me–if I can see why it would be helpful and why it might lead to a different outcome next time–then I might actually try to run again. Which I do not want to do! I want to break up with running. I want to walk away clean. I want to go no contact. I want to have brunch in five years and, when someone asks how running is doing, say, “Running? God, I haven’t thought about Running in years. For all I know, Running’s dead in a ditch somewhere.” And then everyone at the table will laugh, because we all hate running!
If you know me and you know what I’ve done wrong, keep it to yourself! If you love running, that’s great. But when you see me, just say, “Sorry you had such an awful time running. It isn’t for everyone.” Or better yet, “You want to know a little secret? I have always hated running. In quitting, you have done what I have been afraid to do. In many ways, you are the bravest person I have ever met.”
***
Wednesday, July 30th
Now that I have quit trying to run three miles, I feel this immediate urge to find some meaningful conclusion to the story. Some part of me believes that if I could learn something important about movement or about what it means to quit, then it would transform this failure into something valuable. But in a real way, running isn’t valuable or invaluable–just like the value of a success is dependent on the value of the goal in the first place.
As tempting as it is, I am hesitant to make my takeaway from this experience that running is stupid. I am happy for my takeaway to be that running isn’t for me, but I do not want to dismiss all of the runners I know who get something valuable out of that miserable process.
Because while part of me wants to look to the birds and say, “Wouldn’t it be better to bring movement into our lives organically? Rather than allot thirty minutes of discrete jogging after sitting at a desk all day?” I also know that most of us don’t have that flexibility. Heck, I don’t have that flexibility. I’m not a bird. I’m an American. If I don’t work 40 hours a week, I’ll die.
But at the end of the day, the biggest reason I am resistant is that I don’t want to seem petty. Ending this project by talking about prioritizing organic movement over structured running feels a little bit like taking my ball and going home. Ten years of organized sports have drilled into me the value of sportsmanship. I want to shake running’s hand and tell it “good game.” I want to show the crowd of parents that I have accepted my loss with grace. And in return, I want to be taken to a Mongolian barbecue in a strip mall as a prize for my display of maturity.
***
Saturday, August 2nd
Today, a couple friends came over and we made bubbles in the park. While we brought some homemade bubble wands, we mostly ended up using our bare hands. If you create a ring with your fingers and then dip your hand into a mixing bowl full of soapy water, you might be amazed what you can do. After the bubbles, we all went to a movie. Walking home in the sweet summer night, T sighed, “Wow, this has been really nice.”
And all day, I kept thinking, “Thank god I don’t have to run.”
Copyright © 2015