I hated running for most of my life. This year I ran 390 kilometers. I hope to do more next year.

Two things changed to make this happen. First, I now live right near the ocean’s embarkment, which is a great treadmill. Second, I absorbed the simple truth you can hear repeated time and time again: “Run slower”.

Paradoxically, that’s exactly what it takes.

I always thought that I just wasn’t made for running unlike some of my friends. I’d never experienced the “runner’s high”. But I still tried it, especially in my early university years. And this is where I made the crucial mistake. Probably because of Phys. Ed. I convinced myself that I need to run at 6 minutes per km. I could do this but after 2-3 km I was already tired and out of breath.

You need to run slower to teach your body to run faster. In fact, you should go longer, not faster.

You should probably run longer in general. Yes, as with any physical excercise, doing something is already better than nothing. The problem is, if you run less than 5 km at a time, you aren’t spending enough calories to make the difference and are more likely to drop this altogether because you won’t see much results.

Learn about the cardio zones. Get any kind of fitness tracker or a pulsometer. And then run as long as you can. But you must stay in Zone 2. This could look suspiciously slow when you’re starting. But that’s OK. For me, at first it was about 6:40 for each kilometer.

The embarkment I talked about here is 7.5 kilometers back and forth. I remember the first time I ran this distance and how I felt. Now that’s my usual run with the pace of around 5:30. But what really helped me is running progressively longer distances all the way to 12 km. Even then, my pulse rarely goes above 145 bpm.

These are rookie numbers, of course. I know people who can run a three-hour marathon. If you were inspired by Casey’s lifelong attempts to beat it, you should look into interval training.

But I don’t have such ambitious goals and I don’t think I’m even going to run a marathon. What motivates me instead is turning running into a repeatble habit. I think I more or less succeeded. Never been a fan of morning cardio, so I run in the evening. As with any habit, finding a specific time and context and sticking with it helps a lot. There are days I find myself tired from work but still feel this urge to put on my running shoes and get out. This is what I do now.

Another thing that helped me a bit is I started cycling last year. Cycling is great, and maybe even better than running, since you aren’t hurting your knees and the tempo is quite a bit slower. But I still prefer running now, one reason being it takes less time (to burn the same amount of calories).

Since we’re talking about knees. Running a lot is a tenuous activity and it exposes all the issues in your body. I’ve been experiencing pain in one of my knees and in rhomboid muscles in my back. Both were probably happening because some of my muscles in the back and in the legs weren’t stretched enough. So now I’m working on this as well. But had to wait out for a few months as I was recovering on the advice of my doctor.

Running is great because all you need is shoes. Better go to a place where they can let you test multiple pairs and find what’s perfect for you. I didn’t, but I bought Asics Gel-Nimbus and they turned out perfect for me.

Why run in the first place? I’m not saying everybody should. But I enjoy it for multiple reasons. First, overall health and fitness. These runs are so habitual and seamless, I can easily go on most hikes without suffering. I also can eat more freely, which helps a lot, since I’m genetically predisposed to gaining weight in the absence of exercise. Finally, running with nothing but music in my ears feels like the best form of meditation. I don’t think about anything at all. And that’s why I feel much less anxiety on the weeks when I run at least 2-3 times. That alone is worth it.