Hello, World!
Welcome to Stoic Running!
Hello, Stoic Runners! Welcome to my Substack! Thanks for being here. This Substack is all about running, my philosophy of running, and how running is a form of art. These newsletters are more expanded and deepened versions of the daily posts I put on my YouTube channel, Stoic Running, so please head over there and subscribe for 1 minute video posts to start your days Mondays through Thursdays.
Brief Background & What to Expect from Stoic Running
I started running when I had just turned 8; that's 33 years ago for me! I was a really successful athlete in high school but ultimately decided that I didn't want to run at the college or professional level, not because I couldn't, but because I didn't want to not love running. Very truly, this was the decision I had to make at age 19; did I want to run to get money for college and have running be my job, or did I want to love running? I chose running, all the way back then.
That's what Stoic Running is about: the love of running, the relationship that we can have with ourselves and our running practices. Along the way I’ll bring you tips and tricks from my three decades on the roads, sidewalks, and treadmills, and you'll hear a lot about stretching and cross training, which are crucial to supporting a healthy, decades-long running practice with minimal injuries. However, I’ll talk about all this from a foundationally mental stance and focus on three broad topics:
How running makes us feel.
How to live with and build your running practice.
Why running is a perfect antidote to a lot of the stresses and preoccupations of our modern world.
Why Run?
I know that all that sounds a little up in the clouds, so let’s start with the practical: why run? Three immediate reasons come to mind:
Running is very accessible. Shoes are expensive, but they're basically the only gear you need. Sports bras are no treat either, for those of us with breasts, but still, it’s a cheap sport.
Running is very good for you: it's a whole body workout that you can do your whole life.
You can do it inside or outside, all year round, and you don't need a group to make it work, but you can make a ton of friends through running. Running clubs are an amazing resource for lots of people, and races, from the just-for-fun yearly turkey trots to the serious marathons, can be fantastic ways to make this individual sport a friendly, supportive one.
Practical reasons are a massive part of why I run, and I’ve also managed to make lifelong friendships through running, because it’s an activity that can really bring us together. There are hundreds of other reasons to run that I haven’t listed here. If you’d like to bring one for discussion, please email me! I would love to hear why you run.
Why Stoic Running?
Finally, let’s talk about the name of this project: Stoic Running. Some of you might wonder what stoicism is and what it has to do with running? TL/DR: Stoicism is a philosophy for living that came from ancient Greece. It emphasizes a lot of things, but one of its core elements is to know that in life we can demand and achieve many things, but we can't control everything, and we must accept what we can’t control.
That parallels with running really well: we can achieve so much through training and focus, but we can't prevent every injury or feel good every day. In this way, running is an embodiment of stoicism, and stoicism is an expression of running. If you want to read more on stoicism, I would recommend simply picking up the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, a little 2,000 year old primer on how to live a good life in the midst of intense pressures.
I'll see you all on this newsletter again next week, but for today, remember: go run.