My Thoughts On Running

If you've been on Instagram lately, you know everyone is suddenly running. People are logging miles! They join their local Singles Run Club and fall in love with the simplicity, the clear progress, the meditative rhythm. I didn't join a run club; instead, I signed up for a marathon, which gives me lots of plodding miles to think about my training. 

This blog is a product of those thoughts on my journey to get back in shape and run a marathon.

Bringing the wrong mindset to running

What I'm realizing is that most people - myself included - are bringing the wrong mindset to running. We treat it like every other fitness thing we've done: SHOW UP, work as hard as possible, sweat a lot, repeat. But running doesn't work that way.

What running actually rewards is intention.

If you want to get faster, go longer, or stay healthy, you must train with intention and precision. 

You need to understand why one day is slow, why another is fast, and what each session is doing for you. Junk volume doesn't help you here. Nor does constant redlining. What helps is specificity, rhythm, and playing the long game. This got me thinking about how I learned fitness in the first place, and why that approach isn't serving me for this specific goal. 

How Crossfit® shaped my training

I've been doing CrossFit® since 2013. It's been my default method of training, and for good reason - it works. But it works because you SHOW UP, do a lot of work at a high level of effort, and eventually your body adapts. The programming isn't perfect, the workouts aren't individualized, but you move hard for an hour. You sweat. You push through discomfort. And if you keep doing that consistently, you'll get fitter, no doubt. The sheer volume carries you forward.

CrossFit® is brilliant at this. A good gym exposes you to sprinting and pacing, lifting and gymnastics, coordination and fatigue. You train across time domains, movement patterns, joint angles, and energy systems. You're not specializing, but you adapt systemically, broadly, and often without realizing it. That randomness is a form of distributed volume. Because you constantly switch gears, no single pattern gets hammered into the ground.

There's also the psychological side. The culture of the gym amplifies effort. And effort, repeated, is one of the significant catalysts for change. 

Effort works, until it doesn’t

This approach is perfect for building a durable, capable, "ready-for-anything" body. But it's not the only way to get better.

Instead of trying to do everything, you narrow your focus. You choose the right amount of work aimed directly at what you're trying to improve. The volume may or may not be lower. Either way, it's targeted and deliberate, and therefore efficient. This is working smart rather than just WORKING HARD.

Both paths can be effective. But they tend to serve different chapters of your training life.

The brute-force method works well in the early stages, whether you're new, returning from time off, or just trying to build general capacity. You don't need to obsess over the details. You just need to move more, more often. The randomness and intensity of group classes or high-output programs tend to deliver because the baseline is so low. Consistency and intensity become their own program.

But that phase doesn't last forever.

As you gain experience, get stronger, move better, and chase more specific outcomes, brute force becomes less effective. Progress slows - not because you're doing too little, but because you're doing too much of the wrong thing.

This is when training becomes an art. The goal isn't to do as much as possible. It's to do precisely what's required to progress – no more, no less. You become aware of concepts like junk volume. You realize that your time and recovery are finite resources, and they should be spent wisely.

That doesn't mean your training becomes easy or minimalist. It just becomes specific. If you're preparing for an ultra marathon, you'll still be logging a ton of miles. If you're chasing a strength goal, you'll still lift heavy. But that work will have shape and intention rather than being random, but hard.

Knowing is one thing. Living it is another.

This is where I find myself now with running. I know these principles well because I've applied them to my own CrossFit® training and coached others through this transition. But knowing something intellectually and living it in a new domain are different things. Most of my runs need to be slow - embarrassingly slow. Some days I'm supposed to feel tired, other days fresh. 

There are weeks where I barely break a sweat, followed by specific sessions that leave me wrecked.

Even though I understand the theory, I still want to push runs that I shouldn’t. The CrossFit® competitor in me sees an easy 6-mile day and thinks, "I could definitely negative split this." But that's precisely the wrong instinct. The discipline isn't in going harder - it's in holding back.

The Instagram runners picking up the sport are now going through the same transition I am going through. Many come from fitness backgrounds where effort equals results. But running demands patience. It rewards the long view. It punishes the "every day is game day" mentality that serves you well in other contexts.

So wherever you are in your training - whether you're ripping CrossFit® workouts or logging miles - the question to ask yourself is:

Is my training just hard, or is it actually helping?

Answer honestly, and you'll know whether you need more intensity or intention.