Live to run
6 tips to help you become a better runner
1. Find running shoes that work for you. I advise going to a shoe store that records your stride and where your foot lands to recommend a good shoe. This will help you avoid most distance–running injuries. I use Runners Roost in Denver.
2. Listen to music. Seriously. According to a study from the University of Wolverhampton — also, seriously — music can help your running performance up to 15 percent. But according to me, music can help your performance 600 percent.
3. Don’t give up because you don’t see results. Even if you’re super slow when you jog (I definitely was when I started), you burn at least 10 calories a minute.
4. Find a friend. Accountability partners make your fitness routine a far less shakable commitment.
5. Look forward to the “runner’s high.” Now when I run, I find my mind enters a zone where I think about nothing. It’s what I imagine meditation is supposed to be like.
If running doesn’t seem to work out for you – perhaps a disability, asthma, bad knees or shin splints keep getting in your way – don’t use your state of health as an excuse to avoid what exercise is ultimately about – your health. Try cycling or swimming, or even just walking. A low–intensity exercise like walking (more often throughout the day or for longer amounts of time) is increasingly recognized to carry many of the same benefits as an intense jog.
In high school when I was at my heaviest — 230 pounds — my self-esteem was at it’s lowest. The scales tipped at “general disgust with self.” So the summer before my senior year, my friend and I decided to start running together.
It was awful.
If you aren’t a runner, the idea of putting your body into uncharacteristic motion for an unspecified amount of time is daunting. For me, it was pure, unqualified, zombie–ridden apocalyptic hell.
But my friend and I kept running. Relying on each other for support was the strongest motivator I’ve ever had, and over time I got better and better at it. Either that or my heart was getting worse at distributing oxygen to my brain and I just thought I was having an easier time.
By the time I started my senior year I had dropped 60 pounds, and my confidence had never been higher. Being thinner didn’t automatically make me the coolest kid in school, but in my mind I wasn’t “the fat effeminate weirdo” anymore — I was the thin effeminate weirdo. It was worth it.
I am still an avid runner. I never developed any skills that would make me talented at playing any other sports, and that’s OK. I’m sure my competitiveness and lack of regard for other people would make me a terrorist on the field. But running just to run is fun for me now, and I will never forget how that summer before senior year changed my life.
A trend toward “minimalist shoes” like Vibrams developed by advocates of barefoot running notes the human body evolved to run long before the invention of synthetic running shoes. They’re made as light and flexible as possible to allow the foot to spread the way people ran before the 20th century – but it was also a time most people hadn’t spent most of their lives acclimating to modern shoes, so do some research and training if you’re interested in those.
