I had stumbled upon a movie called, How To Run 100 Miles by Brendan Leonard awhile back but never sought out any of his other content. This week, Billy Yang had him on his podcast and I really enjoyed the conversation. I ordered his book, I Hate Running and You Can Too earlier this week and just finished it this morning. The book is hilarious and perfectly encapsulates all of my feelings about running. I found myself laughing out loud several times and I love the little charts and graphs that Brendan adds. If you're a runner or thinking about starting and you need a little pick me up, this book really hits the spot. I can see myself going back to it over and over again. Here are the chapter titles to give you a taste of what you'll get out of the book.
Start Small, Start Now
Walking is Running
Slow is (Eventually Fast)
Compete (Against Yourself)
Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Do the Verb Until You Become the Noun
Inspiration is Not a Strategy
Writing Your Own Definition of Success
Progress is Not a Straight Line
It's Only Half About Running
There Are No "Hacks"
F#%k Busy
Loving Something is Different Than Liking It
Honestly, I'm sure most of these ideas won't be entirely new to you, especially if you're already a runner, but it's still fun to read about and you're at least guaranteed a few chuckles.
From what I could glean from his conversation with Billy, Brendan isn't just a runner. He's a lover of the outdoors and does anything and everything as a means to just be outside, enjoying nature. He's a climber, a biker, a skier and a trail runner. He's the creator of the website, semi-rad.com. I haven't even spent more than 5 minutes on the site yet- just enough time to order an "I HATE RUNNING" (with a heart replacing the "A" t-shirt), but I will, when I have the time. One of his more recent running accomplishments was running a marathon every week for an entire year. He's run several ultras and he's a regular contributor to outdoor publications. Brendan's childhood buddy Jayson became his running partner and the movie How To Run 100 Miles talks about their training journey for a very difficult 100 mile race. No spoilers, but the movie is worth watching. It's a touching friendship, a wonderful story of persistence and I love that it features just Brendan and his friend Jayson. They aren't even close to being elite athletes. They're just 2 guys willing to put in the time and effort to prepare for running the longest they've ever run in their lives. They get up super early on weekends for long runs, in the dark, in the snow/cold/rain. I love how Brendan talks about how everyone is in awe when he tells people he's run 100 miles. He thinks, running 100 miles, yes, impressive, but he had to run something like 1200 miles (in training) to get to the start line.
We often think of the race and the race is the goal, but we don't spend enough time reveling in the training runs. Each run gets you closer to the goal and each run makes you stronger and more mentally tough. These things carry over to every day life. The difficulty of running pales in comparison to things like a stressful job, parenting and how the COVID numbers are trending. The simplicity of training is a comfort- the schedule says to run "x" number of miles at "x" pace and that gets checked off of the list. After the run, you almost always feel great. It sets the tone for the day. As your day goes on, the stresses of what you need to deal with gradually chip away at the high you had from accomplishing your running goal for the day, but then there's always tomorrow and the opportunity to get in another great run. Ironically, I'm always in a better mood overall when I get to run. My rest days are tough. So, in the end, do I hate running or do I love it? I love how it makes me a better person in general. I love how it gets me out into nature exploring new places. But yes, there are moments when I hate it, like when the alarm goes off at 4:30 in the morning. It's kind of crazy to think that you have no idea what a run is going to feel like until you start. Most of the time, there is a level of pain involved, but then there are those moments when things click and it feels effortless. Those "in the flow" moments make you crave the next time you get to run. And over time as you get stronger, if you can avoid injury, the parts of a run that feel good increase and the parts of the run where you feel bad decrease. At least that's been my experience so far. So keep the faith, keep getting out there and keep running.
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