Lessons I’ve Learned From RUnning

I’ve run a marathon, five half-marathons, one 10k, and countless 5ks. I run a minimum of two days a week year-round, and I have for probably 8 years now. I’m the one that prefers grilled chicken over pizza, who usually orders water, and who jump at any hang out with physical activity. I’m a certified personal trainer and sports nutrition coach, and I’ve been coaching in one form or another for over ten years.

Where it started

I wasn’t always the runner in the friend group. Or the healthy eater. Or the one who was always at the gym.

If you knew me in middle or high school, or my first year of college (Lordy, that was the worst year, health-wise), you knew a very different person than I am now.

My priorities: school, my boyfriend (or middle-school crushes), soccer and basketball. I was an athlete, but not a star one. I was pretty good, but not like you see in movies. I played all the sports, but I wasn’t great at any of them.

I ate out all the time. I had at least one cookie at lunch every day. My grandpa raised me that “you don’t eat cuz you’re hungry—you eat to keep from gettin’ hungry".” My grandparents who ate out for every meal and treated me to donuts and ice cream on a regular basis, who kept my favorite ice cream at their house all the time.

My first year of college, I stopped everything I normally did, started completely fresh. Chose not to play college soccer, started in a new city with no friends or family nearby, chose to live on campus at this little school. Completely ignored my health in favor of “the college experience".” We ate Taco Bell, drank endless Mountain Dews, and ran the soft-serve machine in the cafeteria dry.

And then one day my sophomore year, in my cell biology class, I went to erase something and became acutely aware of my arm jiggling more than I was used to. I remember zoning out the rest of class and thinking how I was so disgusted with myself for letting it go so far “down the toilet.” I felt so gross, and I resolved to do something about it.

How I Started Back Up

I resolved to fix my body. To be “skinny.” I tried to cut out all kinds of food, but there’s only so much you can do in a tiny college dining hall when you don’t have any money. When you’re surrounded by people who don’t care about their health. Nutrition was not the viable answer at the time.

I began waking up early to go running.

Every day. 6am before classes. I’d run one loop around campus. Then two. Then I ventured further away from campus into the surrounding neighborhoods. Several miles, past professor’s homes, across the highway, and back home. Never the track.

I didn’t listen to music. Just silence and breathing. (This was also the days of corded headphones, so it was really just more of a hassle to use them.)

Initially, it was a punishment. “I’m disgusting, so I have to run all these miles.”

Eventually, it became a way to clear my head and prepare for the day with a clear mind. If I skipped more than one day, I had trouble focusing, felt more anxious.

What I didn’t KNow

I was changing not only my body and metabolism, but my mind. I learned to cope with boredom by exercising, getting outside, walking, doing pilates.

That’s the real win. Instead of trashing my body in the name of a good time, I began to treat it with respect. If only I knew more about nutrition back then… I could’ve healed so much more. That work is happening now.

Consistency is dependability. You learn to trust your body and yourself. You keep showing up even when it’s hot or rainy or winter and dark. When you don’t feel like it.

Showing up consistently is where you learn the lessons. Perfection is overrated and unattainable.

Have you ever been perfect at anything? Probably not. Me either. That’s another reason I couldn’t “fix” my diet in college. That perfection wasn’t realistic, and I set myself up for failure by trying to cut out all the “bad” food in my life.

What This Means for You

If you're just starting out—or starting over—I want you to know something: my motivation was wrong for a long time. I ran because I was disgusted with myself. Because I wanted to punish my body into being something different. That's not a good reason to run. But it got me out the door at 6am anyway, and somewhere along the way, the reason changed.

Your reason doesn't have to be perfect to be valid. You just have to start.

And when you start, it's not going to feel good every day. Some mornings you'll lace up and feel great. Some mornings you'll feel like lead and wonder why you're doing this. Some days life will get in the way and you'll miss a run. That's not failure. That's just Tuesday.

What matters is that you come back. Not perfectly. Not every single day without exception. Just consistently enough that your body learns it can trust you — and you learn you can trust it.

I'd be willing to bet that if you give it two months—real, imperfect, show-up-anyway months—you'll be writing your own version of this. Not because running is magic, but because consistency is. You learn things about yourself on mile three that you can't learn anywhere else. Things about what you're capable of, what you can push through, what it feels like to do something hard and come out the other side.

I wish someone had told me that in my sophomore cell biology class instead of letting me figure it out alone in the dark at 6am.

And that’s why I became a coach. You don’t have to do it alone—that’s why we’re here. I’ve got resources for nutrition, a beginner plan, and helpful programming and coaching. Just reach out :) Don’t do it alone; it’s more fun with friends.

-bk