How I Learned to Love Running After Hating It for Years

Let me establish my credentials as a running hater. For about ten years, I would have rather done almost anything than go for a run. Dentist? Fine. DMV? Sure. Assembling IKEA furniture with no instructions and a marriage on the line? Still better than running.

Every time I tried to start, the experience was identical: I'd lace up, jog for about eight minutes, feel like my lungs were auditioning for a horror movie, walk home in shame, and not try again for six months. Then somebody would tell me running is "meditative" and "freeing" and I'd give it another shot, last nine minutes instead of eight, feel the same chest-on-fire sensation, and retire again.

This cycle repeated from age twenty-one to about thirty. A full decade of starting and quitting. I was so bad at running, and so consistently bad, that I'd genuinely accepted it as a personal limitation. Some people can run. I'm not one of those people. That's just biology.

It wasn't biology. It was strategy. I was doing everything wrong, and once I stopped doing everything wrong, running went from my least favorite activity to something I genuinely look forward to. I run four days a week now. I signed up for a half marathon. I have opinions about shoe brands.

I've become the person I used to make fun of, and I don't care, because this morning I ran six miles along the river and came home feeling like I could fight a bear. You don't get that from IKEA furniture.

The Mistake That Kept Me Hating Running: Going Too Fast

This is the one. If you've tried running and hated it, this is almost certainly why.

Every time I went for a "run," I ran. Like, full-on ran. As fast as I could sustain. Which was not very fast and not very long, because I had zero aerobic base and was essentially sprinting from a standing start.

The correct way to start running is embarrassingly slow. I mean so slow that you'd be embarrassed if someone you knew drove past. So slow that a brisk walker might keep pace with you. So slow that your ego will scream at you to speed up and you have to actively resist.

The rule of thumb I eventually learned: you should be able to hold a conversation while running. If you're gasping between words, you're going too fast. If you can tell someone a story without pausing for breath, you're in the right zone.

The first time I tried this, I ran for thirty minutes straight. Thirty minutes. After a decade of quitting at eight. The difference wasn't fitness — I hadn't gotten fitter between my last failed attempt and this one. The difference was pace. I was probably moving at 12-13 minutes per mile. A shuffle. But I was running, and I wasn't dying, and for the first time, I could actually think about something other than how much I wanted to stop.

That's when it clicked. Running doesn't have to hurt. It's supposed to be sustainable. The pain I'd associated with running for a decade was entirely self-inflicted. I was doing it wrong, blaming the activity, and quitting. For ten years.

The Walk-Run Method: How I Actually Started

Even with slower pacing, jumping straight into 30-minute runs isn't ideal if you're starting from zero. The method that built my consistency was boringly simple: run for two minutes, walk for one minute, repeat.

I did this for two weeks. Twenty minutes total, three days a week. Run two, walk one. The walking intervals weren't rest — they were part of the workout. They allowed my heart rate to come down just enough to make the next running interval sustainable.

By week three, I extended to run three, walk one. By week five, run five, walk one. By week eight, I was running twenty minutes without walking and feeling genuinely fine at the end.

The psychological benefit of this approach is enormous. Every single session was completable. I never failed. I never hit a wall and had to stop in defeat. I always finished the prescribed workout, which meant I always felt successful, which meant I wanted to come back. The decade of quit-restart cycles was broken by the simple act of making each run achievable.

If you're interested in a structured program that takes this approach from zero to race-ready, I documented my whole couch-to-half-marathon journey, which goes into more detail on the week-by-week progression.

Finding a Route That Doesn't Bore You to Death

My early running attempts were all on a treadmill. I'd stare at the wall, watch the seconds crawl by, and feel my soul slowly exiting my body. Treadmills are fine for some people. For me, they were the running equivalent of solitary confinement.

Moving outside changed everything. Not just because the scenery is better — though it is — but because your brain has things to process. You're navigating. You're watching for cars and dogs and uneven sidewalks. You're noticing things you drive past every day without seeing: that house with the insane garden, the mural on the side of the barbershop, the old guy who sits on his porch every morning and waves at everyone.

I built three routes from my front door at different distances — a 2-mile loop, a 4-mile out-and-back along the river, and a 6-mile route through the neighborhoods east of downtown. Having options matters because running the same route every day gets stale. Variety keeps the habit alive.

If you're in a new area or want inspiration, mapping tools and running apps like Strava will show you popular routes other runners use. Some of my favorite routes came from following someone else's Strava heat map and discovering a park I didn't know existed two miles from my house.

The Gear Epiphany

For years I ran in whatever sneakers I happened to own. Cross-trainers from the outlet mall. Basketball shoes I'd retired from the court. One time, memorably, a pair of Vans because I forgot my gym shoes at home and decided to run anyway. My knees complained. My shins screamed. I blamed running.

It wasn't running. It was the shoes.

Getting fitted for actual running shoes at a specialty running store was a turning point. They watched me walk, analyzed my gait, put me in three different pairs, and sent me out the door for a test jog in each one. The pair that worked — a stability shoe with moderate cushion — felt like running on a different surface. The impact that used to shoot through my knees was absorbed. The shin splints that plagued me stopped.

Running shoes cost between $100 and$ 160 for a good pair. Replace them every 300-500 miles. This is the one piece of gear that isn't optional. Everything else — the fancy shorts, the moisture-wicking shirts, the GPS watch — is nice to have. The shoes are need to have. I wrote more about running gear that doesn't look ridiculous if you're ready to go beyond the shoes.

What Running Actually Feels Like When You're Doing It Right

Here's the thing nobody told me and I wish someone had, because it would have saved me a decade of false starts.

Running, when done at the right pace, doesn't feel like suffering. It feels like... moving. Your body warms up, your breathing settles into a rhythm, your thoughts stop racing and start flowing. There's a gear your brain shifts into around the fifteen-minute mark — sometimes called the runner's high, though it's less dramatic than that name implies — where the effort becomes background noise and you're just... present.

I noticed it first around week six of consistent running. I was on my river route, about two miles in, and I realized I'd been thinking about nothing for the past five minutes. Not solving problems. Not worrying about work. Not planning dinner. Just running. My mind was quiet in a way that meditation had never managed to achieve.

That's what keeps me coming back. Not the fitness benefits, though those are real. Not the weight I've lost, though I've lost some. Not the races, though those are fun. It's the twenty minutes in the middle of a run where my brain finally shuts up. That's worth everything.

Running With Music vs. Running Without

This is a personal preference thing, and I've done both extensively. Here's where I landed.

Music for short runs and speed work. A good playlist with high-BPM tracks helps when you're pushing pace. I have a running playlist that's embarrassingly heavy on early 2000s rap and movie soundtracks, and it works.

Podcasts for long, easy runs. When you're running for an hour at a conversational pace, music can feel monotonous. A podcast or audiobook turns the run into multitasking — you're exercising and learning something or being entertained. I've "read" more books during long runs than I have at my actual desk.

Nothing for the runs where I need to think. Sometimes I leave the headphones at home intentionally. These runs tend to be the most productive mentally. Without input, your brain starts processing whatever it's been holding onto. I've solved work problems, made personal decisions, and come up with my best ideas during silent runs. It sounds cheesy. I don't care. It's true.

I started running alone and expected to stay that way. Running seemed like a solitary activity, and I'm not naturally a joiner. But a friend suggested I try a local running group, and I went once out of curiosity and have gone almost every week since.

Running with other people changes the experience in ways I didn't anticipate. The pace regulates naturally — you match the group, which keeps you from going too fast. The conversation makes the miles disappear. And there's an accountability factor — it's easy to skip a solo run, much harder to bail when three people are expecting you at the trailhead at 7 AM.

The group I run with is a mixed bag: a mortgage broker, a teacher, a retired firefighter, and a woman who runs ultramarathons for fun and is the most casually terrifying person I've ever met. We have almost nothing in common except the running, and yet these have become some of my most genuine friendships. There's something about shared suffering — even the manageable kind — that bonds people quickly.

The Numbers (If You Care)

When I started the walk-run method, my pace was about 13:30 per mile and I couldn't sustain it for more than twenty minutes.

Three months in, I was running continuously at about 11:00 per mile for thirty minutes.

Six months in, I ran my first 10K at 9:45 per mile and felt strong at the finish.

Now, about fourteen months into consistent running, my easy pace is around 9:00-9:15 per mile and I can hold that for ten miles comfortably. My 5K pace is in the low 8:00s. I'm not winning any races. I'm not even close to competitive. But I went from a guy who couldn't run for eight minutes to a guy who runs six to eight miles as a standard weekday workout, and that progression — entirely built on patience, not talent — is the most satisfying physical achievement of my life.

The Part Where I Admit I Was Wrong

I owe running an apology. For ten years I called it boring, painful, and pointless. It wasn't. I was boring — I refused to learn how to do it properly. It was painful — because I ran too fast every single time. And it wasn't pointless — I just quit before any of the points revealed themselves.

Running is the simplest, cheapest, most accessible form of exercise that exists. You need shoes and a door. That's it. No gym membership, no equipment, no class schedule. You walk outside and go. The barrier to entry is essentially zero, which means the only thing stopping most people is a bad experience they had because they, like me, went too hard too early and decided the whole thing was broken.

It's not broken. Your approach was. Fix the approach and running becomes the thing everyone who does it says it is: clarifying, grounding, and quietly addictive.

I'm not going to tell you to start running. That never works. Nobody starts running because someone told them to. But if you've been thinking about it — if you've had that nagging feeling that maybe you should try again — here's what I'll say: go slower than you think you should. Walk when you need to. Give it eight weeks before you judge it.

And when you hit that moment around week six where your brain goes quiet and your body just moves and you forget, briefly, about everything except the rhythm of your feet on the pavement — you'll understand why the rest of us won't shut up about it.