I just ran for 20 minutes straight. Outside. Two months ago, I couldn’t run for three minutes straight without feeling as though I was on the edge of death itself. Here’s how I did what I just did.

First, a bit of background

I have never “been able” to run. I’ve tried countless times. Since middle school, I’ve tried to learn how to run at least once a year, always failing and always giving up. I vividly remember the 1-mile run in 7th or 8th grade. I had never been asked to do this, so the concept was foreign to me. 1 measly mile? Seemed easy enough! I was young, light, and capable—it would be fine. That 1-mile run took me 20 minutes. I couldn’t do it. One minute in, I gave up and did a sad sort-of-jog-but-mostly-walk for the entire distance. I watched in awe and horror as every other girl in my grade flew by me with ease. I felt so stupid. So weak. Like such a loser.

My 11/12-year-old brain took that as an unnecessary wakeup call and tried to train myself to run throughout my neighborhood, which was a HUGE fail. I journaled about it. I have the receipts. This was the beginning of a 20+ year journey to try and train myself to do what I felt it should be doing so easily on its own—RUN. In more recent years, I’ve tried my feet at various couch to 5k apps. Six or seven years ago, I actually got pretty far with one (I think I ran 15 minutes straight) until my shin splints were so bad, I had to stop. After that, I kept trying to start over, but my shin pain would flare up pretty immediately no matter how much money I spent on new running shoes, so I decided this was my body SCREAMING at me to just fucking give up already. I am NOT a runner and I will NEVER be.

And that brings us to today and how I got here.

find your (correct) stride

In July of 2021, I learned that Zac’s sister’s family is a Turkey Trot Thanksgiving family. Not just a few of them either, but all of them. Since I knew we were going to be spending Thanksgiving with them, I knew I would be expected to participate and, although walking the entire thing is in no way shameful, I knew the Aries in me did NOT want to be the new girl coming in last at a citywide 5k. So, I made the decision to fire my couch to 5k app back up and give running the old college try. It started out fine enough, but shortly into my 100th time trying to do this thing, my shins flared up. I made it about a month or so into the program before giving up, showed up for Thanksgiving, and actually ended up doing jogging and walking intervals the entire time with Zac and we finished in under 45 minutes. Not shabby, but not at all full out running. Regardless, the fact that I was even able to DO jogging intervals during an actual 5k gave me the inspiration I needed to finally figure this thing out for good.

After Thanksgiving, I decided to do some research.

I don’t remember exactly how I came across this information, I’m just so thankful I did. They always say to run with your natural stride, to not overthink it. So, this is what I had been doing my whole life. Turns out, my natural stride is heel striking. I quickly realized that this heel striking could be the culprit of my relentless shin splints, but I wanted to be sure my heel strike wasn’t just in my head, so I recorded videos of myself running to review. I even sent them to one of my best friends who’s a runner and posted them on Instagram, to which I got many responses from followers confirming I was, in fact, a heel-striker. So, I researched how to correct your stride and after watching various videos and reading various articles, began to retrain my feet to run with a mid-foot strike. It felt super bizarre and unnatural at first, and I definitely was over-correcting and almost running on my toes like a sprinter for a bit (i.e. a forefoot strike), but kept with it and finally shifted my natural stride to as close as I can get to a mid-strike. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but my life changed with my changing stride. I have never run without pain and suddenly, it was gone. Like it had never been there. This was the first major step (pun intended) in teaching myself how to run.

if the shoe fits, test it

I won’t go on too long about this, but finding a shoe that you feel great running in is pretty vital for your overall running success. There are so many brands and so many styles, each of which offer a variety of things depending on your foot shape, heel arch, stride, etc. All I can say is that Brooks maybe aren’t the cutest, but they’re fucking legit. However, I wanted to run in a bit more style this time around, so I decided to investigate HOKAs (partly because they’re cool and partly because my best friend the runner has them). I ended up getting a pair of the Clifton 8s, which are what I’ve been running in for the past several months. I love them, they feel amazing, and I am for sure a HOKA stan for life now.

find a program and stick with it

You can totally try and run on your own with your own cues and whatnot, but I owe my success this time to the 5K Runner app. I think the first week is free, then it moves into a premium, paid model but it’s literally $8 every three months and completely worth it. Relying on this app to set up my runs for me and help ease me into the whole concept is the only way I’ve gotten as far as I have. The way interval training slowly and quietly builds up your stamina is incredible, and my journey with the 5K Runner app is a testament to that. It’s like, you don’t even realize it’s happening. One day, you can barely make it 2.5 minutes on the Katy Trail, then suddenly you’re knocking out eight minute runs like it’s nothing. The key? Just doing it. Do the runs as they’re scheduled, three times a week. And, if you have a shitty run one day, repeat it the next. That’s also been my strategy—I don’t move onto the next day in the app until I complete each run and feel strongly about it. I repeated 12 minutes straight, 15 minutes straight, and 18 minutes straight until I could do them all without resting. I’m in no rush—I want this thing to last. And speaking of not being in a rush…

it's not about speed

Read that 10 more times. IT’S NOT ABOUT SPEED. As a beginner runner, the last thing you need to be focused on is how fast you’re going. It doesn’t matter. You’re not going for speed—you’re not a sprinter. You’re literally just trying to last for the allotted amount of time, that’s it. As many people have said to me on Instagram during this little journey, you can worry about speed later or never. Right now, it’s about endurance and stamina. Sure, it’s fun to see how long it took me to do a mile, but it’s not what defines whether I had a good run or not. Go slow. Move like a turtle. Scoot your way to the finish line. As one of my favorite sayings goes, “It doesn’t matter how fast you’re moving as long as you’re moving forward,” and that applies here especially. Remember the tortoise and the hare? Yeah. That.

it really is all mental

No, but really. It is. Once I got my stride corrected and my shin pain went away, I realized just how much of a mind fuck running really is. As long as you’re not in physical pain, the struggle is all mental. Of course, fueling your body right with sleep and protein and water play massive factors into how your run might be that day, but when it comes down to it, it’s your head that’s going to decide whether or not you succeed. Something that pushes me forward as I run is knowing that I’m not in danger, this isn’t life or death, I’m not going to DIE from this activity. It’s just hard. And I can do hard shit. There’s a massive difference between feeling like you literally are going to get sick, collapse, hurt yourself and just being tired and wanting to take a break sooooo bad even though you know you don’t need to. I think of this pretty constantly when I run. I repeat phrases to myself like “You’re not gonna die,” “You’ve run for longer than this before, you got this,” and “One foot in the front of the other. Slow down. It’s okay.” Self-talking like this helps me so much. Also, taking your mind completely off your run helps, too. I do this by listening to podcasts I love (I try to save Merritt Beck’s new episode each week for a running day!) or an incredible, upbeat playlist such as Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals from 2008. I am telling you, whenever I run to that album, I feel invincible. In fact, sometimes I dance with my arms as I run—that’s how killer it is for cardio.