I Hate Jogging
I hate jogging. I have gone most weekends for years.
Both sentences are true. I never learned to love it. I learned to stop needing to.
Jogging is good for my heart, and it cuts my migraines down. That is enough reason to go and not nearly enough reason to get out of bed. So here is what actually happens, step by step, on an running morning.
The alarm: I never decide to jog
The alarm sounds. I tell myself the truth: I don’t have to jog. I am free to choose, and I mean it.
But the getting up is not a choice. That one I settled before — when the first alarm sounds, I get up, every time. The hard rule covers only the gate. Everything past the gate stays open. If I made jogging the unbreakable rule, one migraine morning would break it, and a broken rule is worth nothing afterward.
Out of the bedroom: keep the slot empty
I leave the bedroom and nothing is on my calendar until breakfast. That is on purpose. An empty slot has no competitor. There is no email to answer instead, no errand that is suddenly urgent.
I drink water. I warm up. The warm-up is not a commitment — I warm up whether I go or not, so it costs me no argument. Then, standing there awake, I ask again, honestly: go or not?
By then I know I will regret not going. So I go. Half of it isn’t even willpower. It is routine, the way a trained dog needs no explanation. Shoes on. Door open. Start walking.
The walk: jogging is the faster way home
I walk a few minutes and a new thought arrives: this is taking too long.
Jogging is faster. I do not have to sprint later if I do not want to. I can jog slowly the whole way. That deal is small enough to accept, so I take it. I start jogging.
Every step of this is a negotiation I keep winning, because I never put the whole run on the table. I only ever bargain over the next piece.
The first minutes: the body always complains
A few minutes in, the complaints start — tiredness, discomfort, weak muscles. It happens every time, even when I am well rested. So I ignore them.
I listen to my breath and my heart instead. They never quit while I am jogging, because jogging does not burn energy fast enough to make them.
The turn: sprinting ends it sooner
My head is busy the entire way out. Loud thoughts, dull thoughts, thoughts about work. I let them come and go.
Then the turnaround point is in sight, and with it come the dread and anxiety. The same selfish logic answers: sprinting is faster. I sprinted yesterday. I can sprint today. It ends the whole thing sooner.
And I need to start sprint right there, because if I don’t, there won’t be enough distance to fully sprint 3 sessions.
So I sprint.
The first sprint is the longest. I have the most left in me, and I know it is the furthest I will get all morning. I listen to my breath and refuse to listen to my legs. I hold it until I reach where I stopped yesterday, or until my heart and lungs quit on me — which have no reason to be weaker than yesterday. So I ususally stop where I stopped yesterday, maybe a few inches further. Then I jog again.
The second have to happen too, for one reason: I did it yesterday. After the last, I get to enjoy the true relaxation, accomplishment and pride. After the third, I jog happily all the way home.
What is actually going on
One: I never argue with the version of me who has to do the hard part. The tired one at the turnaround does not get asked whether the run was a good idea. He gets asked one small question — is sprinting faster than jogging home? — and the honest answer moves me forward.
Two: yesterday is the only opponent. Not a training plan, not another runner. Just yesterday’s furthest point. It is a low bar and it moves up on its own, a little at a time.
I keep the whole routine in an app I built — plain markdown, a built-in timer, and the file stays yours. Yesterday’s numbers sit right there where today can see them. That is most of what a workout tracker is for: not motivation, just a record honest enough to argue with. The rest of the reasoning about why I bother is in health, the table everything sits on; what the mornings are meant to add up to is in my ideal day.
For my kids, if you ever read this
You will not wake up wanting to do the hard thing. I never have.
Do not wait for the wanting. Make the first step so small it survives a bad mood — get up, warm up, put the shoes on — and let each step buy the next one. Beat yesterday by a little.