Metadata
- Author: Nicholas Thompson
- Full Title:: Why I Run
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- URL:: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/12/the-running-ground-memoir/684633/?gift=SKtFP-7gCBnFn1bNJdqPMt12HwdasFEEMGwVGwM42TY&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
- Read date:: 2025-11-05
Highlights
He once told me that a person has the ability to resist the first affair in a relationship, but once the dam is broken, the waters flood out. The difference between zero and one affair is large; the difference between one and 100, he explained, is small. (View Highlight)
I learned, through practice, how to stay calm under stress. There were some deeper lessons, too. To improve at running, you have to make yourself uncomfortable and push yourself to go at speeds that seem too fast. The same is true in a complicated job. Our minds create limits for us when we’re afraid of failure, not because it’s actually time to slow down or stop. (View Highlight)
But really, to get faster, particularly in a long race like a marathon, you have to go out every day and run—even when you’re sore, tired, cold, grumpy, busy, or all of the above. (View Highlight)
You have to learn to enjoy the pain. You have to convince yourself over and over that the goal is worth the struggle. (View Highlight)
You have to search for that mystical sensation—the crux of this sport—where pleasure and pain blur into one. When you get there, pain means progress and progress means pleasure. (View Highlight)
I like to remember that I’m still alive, and that I survived my cancer. (View Highlight)