How to Be a Runner

I am a runner. I am not your coach, doctor, or therapist. You need to see any and all professionals whose advice may be relevant to your situation, and you should believe them rather than me if we disagree.

There are many good sites on how to be a runner. This blog post is not the first or only page you should consult.

My purpose here is simple. I am offering suggestions and opinions arising from my own observations and experience. I hope my remarks aid in understanding and applying the advice of others. Please feel free to disagree with my words, or to add your own, in the Comments section (below).

Contents

Clothing and Luggage
Injuries and Shoes
Hydration and Food
Lights
Weapons and Other Gear
How to Get Started

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Clothing and Luggage

Do not wear heavy clothes on a hot day, in hopes of losing water weight. That poses a real risk of dehydration plus overheating (e.g., heat stroke). If you want to take the risks associated with losing a lot of water weight, learn to run distances. You can lose several pounds in a single long run. And then it will come right back, as it should, when you end the run and start sucking down the Gatorade, or some other mix of salts and liquid.

Excessive heat triggers cardiological issues for me, so I err on the cool side. From that perspective, my advice is: don’t overdress. Realize that you will warm up within the first half-mile or mile of running – or if you don’t, you really may be underdressed. I wear a mesh sleeveless shirt down to 65°F, a short-sleeved T-shirt down to around 55°F, and a long-sleeved T-shirt down into the thirties, with another optional short-sleeved T-shirt as an underlayer, depending on wind and other factors. At still lower temperatures, a windbreaker and a possible additional layer may help. I’d favor multiple layers that I can add or shed. I don’t know if I’ve ever worn a coat on a run.

Windbreakers: I prefer a zipper rather than a pullover for venting. If I wanted to drag one along just in case, I could consider the packable kind; the self-contained pack on my old Turfer has belt loops. You can get a snug-fitting backpack that works for running, but ideally your windbreaker could squeeze into a no-bounce fanny pack. There are slim fanny packs that hold little more than a phone; an alternative for the phone is a bicep strap. A loaded backpack may change the weight and motion dynamic, provoking joint and leg muscle issues. It may be best to ease into that sort of thing, gradually building up familiarity with rising weight and distance. An option for some is to park one’s stuff in a locker at the gym, and start the run from there.

When temperatures drop into the low thirties, I add tights under my running shorts. (Rather than shorts, I wear swim trunks, because they typically offer a rear pocket.) In the twenties, I replace those with wind pants. A layer of silk or polyester thermal underwear may become advisable below 20°F, depending on wind. A second thermal layer and face mask may be advisable below zero. You can run in a wind at -20°F; you just had probably better keep moving. The adage here is: There is no bad weather. There are just bad clothing choices.

Nylon or silk glove liners can give your hands a bit of protection from cold air, without requiring much space in your pockets. So can a greasy layer of Vaseline – but don’t use it with nylon. A headband is usually enough to ward off earaches, from 50°F down into the thirties at least. Below that, a good fleece hat will keep you warm on anything short of Mars.

If you’re like me, what you lose in skin comfort at colder temperatures, you gain in improved breathing comfort. Goodbye humidity, mold, and random heat-baked pollutants; hello crisp, fresh air. I wouldn’t want to deny the pleasure of a run in a summer thunderstorm. But there is never a sure thing: one time in Wisconsin, the thunderstorm turned into hail. I was lucky it was small hail. It would have been a good time to have a hat.

Injuries and Shoes

To many people, “injury” means the same as “accident.” Not so in running. For a runner, an injury is just something that is injured. So if you’re running down the street and suddenly you pull a calf muscle, that’s an injury.

Probably the best way to get an injury is to overdo it. If you want to be a runner, don’t overdo it. That is the classic beginner’s mistake.

It’s not a question of whether you’re strong or eager. The simple problem is that the start is when your body is least ready. If you injure yourself, you may be out of commission for months. If you feel impatient now, just imagine how impatient you’ll be then.

In the worst case, you can injure yourself permanently. I did that with my right calf. That problem is still with me, 15 years later. It took 10 years to figure out a workaround, a way to prevent it from interrupting runs, often and seemingly at random, to the point where I feared I might never again be able to run regularly.

The general advice, subject to revision for individual cases, is to increase your running distance by 10% per week. Many interpret that in terms of the total: raise a five-mile week to 5.5 miles next week. I interpret it in terms of each individual run: raise your ability to run a mile, this week, to 1.1 miles next week. At five or six miles, maybe just start adding in terms of round miles: your longest run next week can be up to six or seven miles. That seems consistent with many gradual marathon training plans.

Running in a weakened state may increase your risk of injury. It also makes runs less fun. Your body needs rest, not only to build and repair muscles and other tissues, but also to restore your glycogen level.

There are injuries available for everyone. WebMD emphasizes the basic point: stress fractures are “often due to working too hard before your body gets used to a new activity”; shin splints “are common after changing your workout, such as running longer distances or increasing the number of days you run, too quickly”; Achilles tendinitis “is usually caused by repetitive stress … [due to] too much distance.” People who are overweight when they start may want to observe some special precautions.

In short, take it easy and build up gradually. Note, however, that not all injuries require or benefit from time off. You have to get to know your own history. For instance, I sprained my right ankle when I was 15, stepping off a pickup truck’s tailgate while carrying a 75-lb. pack of asphalt roofing shingles. That injury almost never bothers me except when I’m first starting to run, after a period of weeks or months off. The solution in that case is not to stop running and wait for it to feel better. It never will: the pain will return, every time I try to resume running. The solution is to run through it. Within a short time – sometimes within just a minute or two – it goes away.

I have a similar problem with my left knee. Sometimes it aches. The solution there seems to be better (especially faster and lighter) running – not, say, backpacking up hills with a heavy load. Taking a year off, as I did one time, didn’t help it at all. That injury originated in New York City in 1987, when a driver T-boned me at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. At first, I couldn’t walk. It recovered in a few days – but the potential for issues has been there ever since.

It’s been a while, but I know sometimes new runners can get painful sideaches. Among the suggestions offered by various sources, I found that I could often avoid these by running faster – over a shorter distance, if necessary – until I stopped getting them.

They say motion is lotion. If you can find a way to get the joints and muscles moving, and keep them moving without pain, your body will produce natural painkillers that will tend to make it easier to keep moving. Unfortunately, that will only work for some injuries. You may have to figure out, the hard way, whether taking it easy helps, or whether trying to run through it aggravates the problem. Going to a specialist may help, but they can’t always identify the issue, or prescribe anything that may help.

I became somewhat less fond of specialists when an orthopedic intern treated my running like something that couldn’t continue because I was so terribly old. I suppose people in less-than-perfect would be at risk of similar treatment in some places. Discouragement is one thing you don’t need when you’re just starting out. Not to deny that I can be guilty of it too. I saw an obese guy on the trail one time, trying to run. I felt guilty that I didn’t turn around, run beside him, and offer him some advice on starting slowly. Maybe that would have been helpful. But a year or so later, I saw what was, I think, the same guy, and now he was just beefy and strong-looking, still charging ahead with that same determined look on his face.

Cross-training is another way to reduce the risk of injury; indeed, Runner’s World says that injury prevention is the number one benefit of cross-training. The general idea is that you are working the same or related muscles in a different way. According to Marathon Handbook, great cross-training activities for runners include weightlifting, swimming and aqua jogging, biking, yoga and pilates, elliptical, walking, hiking, golf, and team sports. My own favorite form of cross-training is riding my Razor push scooter up and down the hills at 3 AM, when I have the streets to myself. If you have a cross-training activity that you really enjoy, you may find it relatively easy to make it your primary form of activity (rather than skipping exercise altogether) when injuries prevent you from running. An example: people who have knee replacement surgery often transition to biking as their primary form of exercise. Biking evidently places less stress on the knee.

Shoes are important. There is no one-size-fits-all. I always thought I was a size 13. It took a long time to realize that size 14 caused fewer issues – such as toes jammed up against the ends of the shoes, making my toenails turn black and fall off.

Cushioning is another shoe issue. After assorted foot and knee problems, I wound up becoming an Altra customer, using relatively flat-soled models without a ton of cushioning or heel lift or arch support – most recently the Escalante Racer ’19, before that the Altra One 2.5. I think the Escalantes were warranted for only 300 miles, and WebMD advises that shoes “are recommended to last for [only] a certain mileage.” But I put 1,600 miles of running and another thousand miles of walking on those Escalantes. You know, if it works, don’t fix it.

I think it may have stopped working, though. A few months ago, I came down with plantar fasciitis. While my post concluded that the plantar fasciitis boot was an integral part of my solution back in 2013, this time I seem to be holding it at bay with heel drops for 45 seconds, four or five times a day (see RunningPhysio). I realized the jig was up for the Escalantes when water began coming in through the sole. Now they’re my house slippers, with laces tied permanently to make them slip-ons. I hope my new Altra Vihos are not too much of a transition.

(I don’t get any payments from anyone – other than readers who make a very welcome donation – for anything in my blogs. I say that I’m using Altras simply because that’s the truth. I got the Vihos (no longer generally available) for $50. Comparable Escalantes are at least $100.)

I’ll just add a suggestion that, for best results with long laces, don’t tape them or tie them in a granny knot to keep them from unraveling. Just make the loops long, when you tie them, and tuck those long loops under the crosshatched laces ahead of the knot. Then they won’t get tangled in your bike pedals or chain; they will never come untied; and if you do it right, you can untie them in the dark without creating a worse knot, just by pulling on one of the loose ends.

Hydration and Food

Don’t overhydrate. Some runners actually gain weight, during a run, because they drink more liquid than they lose in sweat and pee. Hyponatremia is the word for excessive loss of blood sodium. This can happen when you consume too much water, thereby diluting the nutrients in your blood. According to Human Kinetics, exercise-induced hyponatremia resulting in as little as a 1% weight gain can impair performance, and a gain of 6% is likely to be fatal.

I never carry liquids. I don’t want the weight sloshing around and putting weird stresses on my knees or other joints. I want that skin on my back to be exposed to cooling air, not kept warm by a Camelbak bladder. Possibly the liquid would help on a long, hot run. For me, that might be above 15 miles, above 65°F. I try to avoid long, hot runs.

No doubt there’s a point when you need food. I have to balance that against the risk of stomach upset – which, in the worst cases, can incapacitate you. My solution is to virtually never run with food in my stomach. If I really needed fuel at runtime, I would consider a sugary beverage. But that doesn’t happen. I just don’t run within at least three (preferably, five or more) hours after a meal. Unless I’ve eaten a lot, or have eaten something hard to digest, that is apparently long enough for the stomach to empty out. I don’t eat until the run is over.

I also tend to be careful about not drinking too much, too quickly. One time, after a 20-mile run in Colorado, I went into a convenience store, bought a quart of Gatorade, and slurped it down on the bus ride home – and then promptly barfed it right back into the bag it came in. Fortunately, the bag had no holes. So I just carried a bag full of barfed Gatorade for a 20-mile bus ride. The bus driver was keeping an eye on me in his rearview mirror. I suppose I could have tried to redrink it.

When food leaves your stomach, it goes into your small intestine. It can stay there for some hours. If you already have some internal or external fat, even a smallish amount of food in the small intestine can make you feel really full and/or fat. The solution here seems to be, lose the fat if you can, so as to enable yourself to run, five or ten hours after a meal, without feeling full or fat.

Feeling full or fat seems to be more of a problem at the start. After a mile or two, it’s less of a burden, at least for me: I’m skinny. I don’t know what heavier people experience.

When food leaves your small intestine, it goes into your large intestine (a/k/a colon). Now we’re approaching pooptime. Going for a run is a great way to discover that you really need to use a toilet. When you run in the middle of the night, you learn the locations of all the Porta-potties and the 24-hour gas stations and hotels with public restrooms. Nobody wants a runs run.

For that, I have three precautions. First, realize that switching from a run to a walk can quickly diminish the desperate desire to defecate. Second, if there’s a chance you’ll be using a Porta-potty or taking a dump in the weeds, carry a Handi-Wipe. I use the individually packaged ones, but a bulk-packaged Wet Wipe in a Ziploc bag would work too.

Third, use a glycerin suppository before your run. This is an inexpensive, soft, crayon- or cone-shaped stick composed of a carbohydrate that dissolves in your colon. The trick is getting it there. The advice seems to be, bend over, make like you’re going to poop, push the thing up your butt at least a half-finger length, and then hold off pooping as long as you can. Five minutes may be more than enough. It won’t start a bowel movement, nor will it clear out everything, every time; but it can reduce the odds of needing a toilet during your run. Note that people have also suggested other solutions.

Lights

It may seem obvious that, if you run at night, you should wear a ton of lights to make sure that everyone within a three-block radius can see you. I don’t do that. I have a few reasons. One is that, when you run in the wee hours, there isn’t a lot of traffic. It’s not hard to avoid vehicles.

There will be the occasional self-righteous drunk driver who flashes his/her brights at you, to let you know that s/he was able to see you but might not have noticed you in some alternate universe. The greater concern is the occasional psychopath who may want to kidnap or take a random shot at you. Better not to advertise your existence. If I have to run from someone, I don’t want to be trying to turn off all my lights at the same time.

Where I live, the bars close at 2 AM, and the last survivors slowly abandon their parking lots. By 2:30 the streets are dead. Then you’ve got a quiet hour and a half, or more, before the uptight early morning restaurant-opening hyper-caffeinated workers hit the road. They will be ready to hit you, if you are four millimeters away from the part of the roadway where they think you belong; but they aren’t impaired and they aren’t pathological per se. Better still, there usually aren’t many of them. Then things quiet down again, until sometime after 5. The schedule runs a bit later on Saturday morning, and much later on Sunday morning.

Another reason for disliking lights is that they screw up your night vision. You find you can only see what’s lit – which is not great, if you’re moving fast enough to deny a long advance look at obstacles. There is the occasional spot that lacks illumination from street lights, headlights, and light pollution. For that, a headlamp could be useful. But you would still ideally not have to wear it constantly, thereby drawing bugs into your eyes and giving you a headache, especially if you’ve got its strap pulled tight to keep it from bouncing around.

You may also have to wear a headlamp, so as to use the dark and unsafe sidewalk, if the police in your city threaten you with anything like my experience of a bored cop who gave me a warning ticket for running along the edge of a deserted street in the middle of the night. Generally, though, night vision is the better solution.

You don’t need lights for running in the daytime, but in some situations a strobe or other attention-getting light could save your life. The problem with daytime running is that drivers are constantly pulling out of driveways and side streets onto the main roadway. They commonly launch their vehicles right across the sidewalk before they come to a stop. So if you are running down the sidewalk at the wrong moment, they will knock you out into oncoming traffic, in front of a speeding vehicle that will kill you.

For this, one solution is to run on the same side of the street as oncoming traffic, so that the driver who has lurched out from a side street will be looking in your direction for oncoming vehicles, and thus could at least theoretically see you coming. No guarantees on that one: they are looking for vehicles, not runners, and can therefore look right past you. Another solution is to veer out as far into the street as you can – again risking a ticket from a bored cop – so as to get more fully into the driver’s line of sight, and to give yourself a bit of space to work with, in case they do happen to hit the gas just as you’re crossing in front of them. Really bright flashing lights could be an aid in that case. So could a whistle, worn on a cord around your neck.

Despite my precautions and experience, I did face a risk of death one night, a few months back. I was running along a street with no sidewalk. A driver came toward me – and then he veered off the road, heading directly at me. There was a wall to my left: no exit. Possibly a boatload of flashing lights would have caught his attention – but not if he was too intoxicated to get it together, or if he had simply fallen asleep or passed out at the wheel. I was running past a few trees, but they did not seem thick enough, individually or collectively, to stop a vehicle at his speed. My only real solution was to dash across to the other side of the street as soon as I saw the problem. But I wasn’t on-the-ball enough to do that. What saved me was luck: he got his vehicle back on the street and went roaring past.

Weapons and Other Gear

It may make sense to carry a suitable gun if you run through areas where bears, mountain lions, or wild pigs are a risk. This depends on circumstances: mountain lions and wild pigs can be found, and may be bold, even within urban areas. For the most part, a knife or animal mace may be more than enough. Even a pack of coyotes is very unlikely to attack you.

Smaller animals (e.g., opossums, raccoons) are almost always afraid of you. I did become acquainted, over a period of months, with a territorial skunk who would come marching right at me – unlike most of them, who can’t hear very well but who will run a half-mile back to safety once they do notice your presence. Deer vary: some, especially bucks, will warily stand their ground, or slowly retreat a bit; others run like hell as soon as they see you. Little grey foxes in my vicinity are about as wary as stray cats. I have twice encountered a very self-assured red fox who does not seem to care whether I am there or not, as he chases those same cats. I did have an owl or buzzard flap his wings right above my head one time – I think he may have been close to clawing me – but I put my hands up; he tried again and I responded again; and then he left, no weapon needed.

In theory, a knife could also be useful for scaring or perhaps actually injuring an aggressive human. But there is a risk that the attacker has a gun, and that pulling your knife gives him/her a self-defense excuse for using it. Carrying a gun could be even more of an accident waiting to happen, if there is any chance that you would use it without thinking, in a moment of anger – because your friendly local motorists are going to give you some of those, as they indulge their usually distracted but sometimes deliberate efforts to kill you.

It’s probably a good idea to carry a phone, turned on, if you run at night. In my ten years of night running, I haven’t needed to make a single emergency call on my own behalf. I could have used a good video camera, when I was biking at these hours, because there were a few truly close calls, when I was nearly sideswiped by apparently intoxicated and/or psychopathic drivers. It seems, unfortunately, that the camera tech is still not good enough to capture sharp nighttime video. I have however seen the occasional car wreck. With one exception, the cops or other first responders beat me there. In that exception, the people were already dead, run over by a dump truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel. There could be a late-night emergency in which a phone could save a life.

Carrying a radio is an entertainment option, though phones can typically serve the same purposes. When using a radio or other device to play audio in the company of others (e.g., on a busy sidewalk or in a well-used park, or in the quiet hours of the night), earphones are the essential alternative to rudely imposing your tastes on everyone else and turning nature into an extension of a street downtown.

Other than that, you might want to carry plastic bags to protect electrical devices in case of rain; cough drops or candy for your throat, or for a bit of emergency energy; cash or a card, sufficient to buy Gatorade or a bus ride home; an ID card if stopped by police (though I’ve gotten by with just a photocopy of my driver’s license, which you can laminate with clear Contact paper); and the entry cards or keys for your gym or any other place where you’d want to stop off, for shower or restroom use or otherwise, before or after your run.

How to Get Started

The first rule: start when you’re young. There have been amazing exceptions (e.g., Kathy Martin). But for the most part, the younger you are when you begin, the more likely you are to view running, not as a chore, but rather as an intrinsic part of who you are. You’ll be more inclined to fight your way back to it, in midlife and even in old age, when life’s inevitable injuries and other interruptions would give you an excuse to quit – like the many people I have met who have claimed that sore knees or other maladies required them to hang up their sneakers. If you start before you accumulate any major problems with joints, muscles, tendons, or ligaments, you will have a clearer understanding of how such injuries change you, and you’ll be better equipped to figure out what treatments help.

The second rule: don’t overdo it (see above).

The third rule: don’t run to lose weight. That makes it a chore, and we tend to avoid chores. When you get to the point of wanting to run (see rule 4, below), weight control will likely become less of an issue. That may not be true if you’re addicted to Twinkies. It also won’t work if running becomes something that you reward by eating. I’ve been there. I sympathize.

The fourth rule: run because you like it. If you don’t like it, find a way to enjoy it and keep at it. Allow months for this. Simple walking or other outdoor exposure can help with that. I find that, the more I’m outside, the more I want to stay outside. When walking several miles is no longer a big deal, the thought of jogging a city block may be less intimidating. It’s OK to do little sprints. In fact, interval training is supposedly as good for you as continuous running.

Running is most appealing when the location is fun. As discussed in another post, that can mean trail running instead of just staying on the streets. It probably means mixing up the distances you cover – ranging from attempts at a fast quarter-mile up to half-marathons and beyond – and doing your best with each, instead of always plodding through the same three-mile (or whatever) trudge. It can mean running in parks or out in the countryside, instead of the city, and choosing city routes that are interesting, that let you enjoy new places. Bus running is an option: take the city bus out to your starting point, or back from your ending point. Google Maps, Street View, and Earth are your friend, for purposes of finding new places to explore without getting stuck in cul-de-sacs.

I had a really pleasant 18-miler, a few weeks ago, at 5 AM on a Sunday. It wasn’t anything spectacular; I just happened to be on a road that had airport activity (specifically, FedEx and DHL terminals) on the right side, and a freight train waiting at a siding on the left side. I caught up with the train at about the time that it started to move. So as I ran alongside it, it began to make noises and then began picking up speed until I couldn’t keep up. Simple events can be surprisingly entertaining when there’s not a lot going on.

Speaking of which, don’t expect that your mind will immediately find enough stimulation to carry you through a three-hour run without boredom. Music and podcasts are a possibility. I’ve never used them. I don’t want anything preventing me from the occasional social contact with others on the trail, and I sure don’t want to get lost in my head, or otherwise miss warning sounds (e.g., the sound of car tires catching up from behind). I fear that a fair number of fine would-be runners have been buried with their headphones.

Keeping at it means surviving disappointments. I meant well when I donated blood, and I donated regularly for years. But I backed off after one bad experience, when Red Cross personnel deceived me regarding the type of procedure I was experiencing. At my age, that episode seems to have had permanent deleterious effects on my running. The next time I donated blood, years later, was more straightforward – but by then, age and cardiac conditions meant that I lost the entire running season (i.e., the short San Antonio winter, which is the only time when I can run full-tilt) to a very slow recovery of my strength. I lost a year to caution after my experience with atrial flutter, and another year to caution after my knee started aching. And so on.

The really surprising thing is that such things don’t happen so much anymore. You’d think I’m getting older, I should be losing more time to injuries and complications, but it seems to be the other way around: I seem to have accumulated enough relevant experience to avoid most of the events that would impair my running.

Nocturnal Running and Weight Gain

Some time back – maybe while I was researching my posts on sleep issues or on heart problems related to distance running – I came across research suggesting that people who slept fewer hours at night – or maybe it was people who slept in the daytime – tended to have more problems with gaining weight. The suggestion at the time, as I recall, was that maybe they were more inclined to snack, late at night.

That could be. But an article in Popular Mechanics (Leman, 2022) cites a study by Mason et al. (PNAS, 2022), investigating the effects of ambient light during one’s sleep. Northwestern University (Paul, 2022) elaborates on that study, explaining that human physiology responds to light at night as it does in daytime:

[L]ight exposure during daytime increases heart rate via activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which kicks your heart into high gear and heightens alertness to meet the challenges of the day. …

Investigators found insulin resistance occurred the morning after people slept in a light room. Insulin resistance is when cells in your muscles, fat and live don’t respond well to insulin and can’t use glucose from your blood for energy. To make up for it, your pancreas makes more insulin. Over time, your blood sugar goes up.

An earlier study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at a large population of healthy people who had exposure to light during sleep. They were more overweight and obese ….

The study tested the effect of sleeping with 100 lux (moderate light) compared to 3 lux (dim light) in participants over a single night. …

Tips to reduce light during sleep

Don’t turn lights on. If you need to have a light on (which older adults may want for safety), make it a dim light that is closer to the floor.
Color is important. Amber or a red/orange light is less stimulating for the brain. Don’t use white or blue light and keep it far away from the sleeping person.
Blackout shades or eye masks are good if you can’t control the outdoor light. Move your bed so the outdoor light isn’t shining on your face.

According to Wikipedia (see ScopeCalc), the 3 lux level tested in that study would be similar to the brightness outdoors at the dark limit of civil twilight – that is, when you can just barely see outdoor objects clearly enough to get by without artificial lighting, roughly a half-hour before sunrise or a half-hour after sunset (in a location without light pollution).

The 100 lux level would be comparable to a very dark overcast day, or a little brighter than an office building hallway. Paul (2022) seemed to feel that a TV screen (or, presumably, a computer monitor) would be bright enough to have such effects. Again quoting one of the study authors, “If you’re able to see things really well, it’s probably too light.” Popular Mechanics (Leman, 2022) suggested using a night light rather than a lamp, and arranging things so that no lights are directly visible from the bed.

My thought, upon reading these materials, was that sleeping with too much light – due to either lights in the room or daytime sleeping without blackout curtains – could stimulate weight gain, regardless of snacking, because of the physiological effects of exposure to light. To me, as a person who runs at night during the hot months, and who feels moreover that his metabolism has changed within the past few years, this research did support the common-sense conclusion that I should make sure the bedroom stays dark during sleep hours.

How I Stay Skinny

Running is a great sport for being skinny. But it’s not magic. It’s also not necessarily hard work. For those who may find it helpful, this post contributes my own observations on that.

1. Luck

I have always been thin. If obesity is caused by a virus, I don’t have it; if it is caused by a certain kind of metabolism, I don’t have that either. If it is caused by less-than-ideal heredity, or by a curse that makes other people blow up when they eat the things I eat, I must be blessed. If it is caused by a sweet tooth, I’m lucky there too: at a certain point, I feel I’ve had enough sugar. Whatever causes obesity, it isn’t happening in me. That’s not due to my superior self-discipline or diet or anything other than luck. I know that; I am grateful that I got lucky; and I am sorry for those who find it much tougher to get to a place where running is even an option.

2. Love the Outdoors

Anybody can tie on the shoes and try to run down the street. I don’t think that’s the way to start running. If you want to run, and keep running, I suggest that, for now, you forget about running. Focus, instead, on loving the outdoors. Find pleasant things to do or places to go, outside. I find that, the longer I’m outdoors, the more I want to stay outdoors. So walk, work in the garden, go hunting, play in the mud, anything to build up your addiction to the outdoors. The work and fresh air are good for you in any case; you’re more likely to meet people and have experiences that are part of an actual life, as distinct from whatever is going on indoors; you’re being saved from the real possibility that sitting is dangerous. Most important, for present purposes: you are acquiring a reason to want to run and keep running. If you want to be outdoors, running can help you do that at times (e.g., midnight, midwinter) and in places (e.g., cities) where interesting outdoor alternatives are limited. Ultimately, even if you don’t stick with running, you should at least stick with an effort to experience the outside as a great place; you should always try to find ways to enjoy being out there.

3. Find a Kind of Running That Works for You

Here’s how running works. You get motivated to lose weight; or if you’re already skinny, you get excited about running farther or faster; you take the plunge; you get tired of it, or you get injured; and then you spend weeks or months (or years) starting over. So don’t do that. Control your enthusiasm. Be aware of the number of things that can go wrong, ranging from stress fractures to strained joints to the heart conditions that can result from too much distance running. If you’re the very obese man I saw — once — trying to run on the nearby trail, realize that that probably will be your one and only stab at it. Because it’s going to be hot, uncomfortable, hard, and quite possibly damaging to your feet, ankles, knees, back, and so forth, and you probably won’t try it again. Instead, listen to what people tell you online, about starting gradually. Just see if you can walk a short distance.

But don’t do that if you can’t find a way to enjoy it! For most of us, willpower doesn’t work over the long haul. Instead of relying on self-discipline, find a kind of walking that you like. Maybe it’s a game, where you walk a block and then you get to sit and talk on the phone or drink another beer. (Kidding, sort of.) Maybe it’s an exploration, where you make a point of going down different streets and alleys at different times of day and night, just to see if there are interesting or spooky things happening. Maybe it’s window-shopping at the mall. Maybe there are friends to visit, or local errands that are actually more pleasantly run on foot. Maybe you would like the habit of going out for a quiet stroll before starting your day, or around sunset. Maybe there are Pokemon-type games online, where you can use your cellphone to help you wander into traffic because you weren’t paying attention. Whatever. It doesn’t necessarily take much. For instance, one recent study found that, for older people with functional limitations, exercising just seven minutes each day (alternately, 15 minutes per day, three times a week) yielded significant health improvements. So find some way to enjoy the feeling of your feet moving you down the street — and to enjoy the feeling that you are starting to become stronger. That is the sort of encouragement that might get you walking regularly.

And then, someday — a month from now, a year from now, whatever — when you’ve built up your ambulatory equipment, to the point where it can handle some twists and stresses, and you feel pretty good about your walking, apply the same way of thinking to the project of becoming a runner. You’ll have started to see which shoes, clothes, locations, and levels of effort work for you. You’ll begin to know a little more about yourself — about the methods, distances, and places where it’s fun. Now you can experiment. If you can move, you can improve. So try running 30 steps at your fastest possible pace. Or alternate walking and jogging through the woods. Or walk (or even run) sideways, or backwards. Or find a partner and try some dancing. Or do qigong or tai chi. Whatever helps you acquire some confidence and desire to get better on your feet. And, again, remember: what’s important is not the running; what’s important is just moving around — outdoors, if possible — in a way you like. If you’re lucky, it might eventually develop into a real interest in running. Then you’ll be ready for something like the run-walk method advocated as a starting point by the New York Times, among others.

For most of us, the hardest part of becoming a runner is the start: getting moving, finishing the first few blocks, staying with it the first few months, getting outdoors when it’s cold (even if you know you’ll warm up within the first half-mile). There is that to it: you do have to put on one running shoe, and then see if you can bear to put on the other one. As you see here, I suggest starting by just getting outdoors. Maybe someday you’ll catch the running bug, or maybe you won’t, but at least you’ll (almost) always have your walking.

4. Don’t Focus on Weight Control

Yes, of course, a successful running program will tend to reduce weight. But there are no guarantees. I remember speaking with the father of a young woman who had recently taken up distance running. He said she liked it because it allowed her to eat more. And that was true: it would. But there are times when a runner is injured, or too busy to run, or just doesn’t feel like it. If you’re eating like there’s no tomorrow, that can easily catch up with you. Ultimately, I think, you have to take up walking, and running if it comes to that, because you have learned to like the outdoors and you have come to enjoy the feeling of running down a trail, or through the woods, or traveling through the countryside with your thoughts and with that lulling steady noise of your feet, your breathing, and the wind. You may find that the desire to keep running will discourage you from eating too much. In any case, if your walking or running has a beneficial effect on your weight, that’s to be hoped for, but it may not be a substitute for trying to eat sensibly.

One Sunday morning, when I was living in New York, I came up out of the subway onto Central Park West. There, I found myself in the middle of the L’eggs Mini-Marathon. L’eggs is, of course, a brand of women’s hosiery, and the mini-marathon was a 10K run that, as I discovered, featured thousands of women of all heights and weights, running at all speeds. They were everywhere. I suppose the truly obese were not present, but it was remarkable to see how short and tall, heavy and slender women could all be running at about the same pace. Maybe I was near the start. Not sure. But I’ve seen that in joggers, too: the ones with the thin or athletic builds are most common, and they may tend to be fastest; but there is quite a variety of body types, among those who run regularly. It does appear to be possible for hefty people to become comfortable with running.

Worrying too much about weight can lead people to do foolish things. I’ve seen overweight people running on hot days, wearing dark (i.e., sun-absorbing), heavy sweatshirts and pants. It is possible that they don’t realize how much they are going to warm up, once they start moving; but sometimes I know they are hoping to lose weight by sweating a lot. One time, I saw a guy dressed like that, on a day with a heat index in the 90s. I commented that he was going to cook. He said he was trying to lose some extra pounds. That’s known as water weight. It comes right back. But when you sweat it out, you lose nutrients, and too much of that can be unhealthy. In that heat, the only thing he was going to accomplish was to teach himself to hate running, and possibly put himself in the hospital with heatstroke. So don’t count on sweat making any difference. You’re going to sweat, and then you’re going to rehydrate. I was seeing a loss of up to four pounds for every hour of running, when I was doing distances, but I didn’t expect that the weight would still be gone the next day.

Running has benefits that have nothing to do with weight. One has to do with longevity. Running (or biking, even at 105 years old) can lower your blood pressure and, in other ways, contribute to cardiovascular health. Another has to do with aging well. If you reach the age of 60 (or even 50) and you aren’t already a runner, you are very unlikely to start; but if you already are, you are unlikely to want to quit. In your later years, you have fewer opportunities for play, fewer chances to put a little pressure on those bones and keep those joints moving. So then you’re more at risk of having joint problems and falling; and if you haven’t had my experiences of recurrently tripping and falling in the dark because you run at 3 AM and can’t see where you’re going, you’ll be out of practice: you won’t remember how to fall. In short, you know the rule: use it or lose it. Your older years may seem like a lifetime away. But they aren’t. You may be surprised, how quickly you can reach the feeling of being old, weak, frail, and vulnerable.

5. Fat Is the Enemy

My theory: fat wants to be fed. If you have fat on your body, it changes your appetite. I don’t know that to be a scientific fact; that’s just my self-observation. I am really not knowledgeable about various diets, medications, and medical procedures that a person might use, in a bid to lose weight. I have the general impression that some of them work, and most don’t. But I know that, if I were really overweight, and if I wanted to be a runner, my first question would be, Is there a reliable and affordable way to get rid of weight, at least for a respectable amount of time? I would want to do that so that I could get a running start, so to speak, on this project of becoming a walking or running outdoorsman. Just give me some weeks or months where I don’t constantly have fat (whether visible on the outside or hidden in my belly) screaming out for food that I really, really want to give it.

That’s it. That’s how I stay skinny. Not through diet and self-discipline; just through luck and, especially in recent years, in learning to want to be where I should be — by discovering that, in certain ways, the outdoors is where I belong, and that sometimes walking and running and biking are particularly rewarding ways to be there. I don’t know if it’ll work for you. But at least it can be pleasant; it can be a positive experience that might evolve into something more.