Running saved my life.

Running did three things for my life:

1. Gave me a place to escape from the stresses of reality.
2. Gave me a daily hour of deep thought
3. Helped me structure the rest of my life.

Three months ago, I embarked on a journey toward the Boston Marathon. My mother, an avid marathoner and triathlete, had always praised the benefits of running in her life. I grew up playing many sports, but long distance running was never apart of my training. It wasn’t until spring break of 2016 that I decided to embark on this journey to the Boston marathon for two reasons. For one, it had always been a dream of my mother’s to one day cross the finish line in the streets of Boston, alongside her son. Second, and most practical, was simply to maintain a proper level of health and fitness. Up to that point, I had no idea that my life would take a 180 degree turn.

I can remember huffing and puffing along Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans. It was the middle of Spring Break, and I was mentally battling the perfect balance between relaxation (vacation), and stress (school obligations). Being torn between the hotel pool and my school backpack was really bringing me down. I decided that I had no other choice than to go outside box to find a solution. The solution was a long run on the streets of New Orleans, something I was not familiar with, but was desperate enough to try.

1. It was on this run that I discovered running was the perfect place for me to escape from the stresses of reality. Though I could not run very fast, nor could I produce a respectable distance, I knew that running could be a really good thing for me.

2. It provided this perfect, uninterrupted, hour of intense thought in which I came up with the solutions to all of my problems. I felt like I had discovered some sort of life hack. It was almost as if this run forced me to think and analyze the individual things which were mentally stopping me from enjoying my life. This was something I felt like would require too much time, therefore it wasn’t worth worrying about during my vacation. In all reality, I just wasn’t giving my problems the careful thought that they needed, and this run was a tailor-made opportunity to figure them out with relatively zero stress.

3. Lastly, it was running that helped me structure the man I have become over the last four months. It was on a run where I decided I would sacrifice an hour of sleep each night and use it towards an early morning run; I find it gives me more energy throughout the day. It was also on a run where I decided to start writing for The Odyssey, and ironically enough where I came up for the topic of this article. More importantly, it was on a run where I decided that I could get through the mathematical demands of engineering. That rather than stressing about whether or not I was “cut out” to be an engineer, I would spend the necessary hours in the library which would elevate my performance in each of my classes. It wasn’t magic, I am no math genius, but I figured out, on a run, that if I worked hard enough, it did not matter. I was able to bypass my self doubt on these runs and learned to maximize the time I had within a day. Just to summarize, the engineering was turning me into a problem solving monster and the running was giving me a place to effectively balance out all of the different things that were coming at me while I made all of my life decisions. Running was like a free guidance counselor, feeding me reassurance when I was filled with doubt, while simultaneously giving me an escape from reality.

I am proud to say that I completed my very first race, The International 10K, at 7 o’clock this morning. I placed second in my age group, and 82 out of 582 competitive runners. It also seemed fitting that my mother was by my side the entire time. It is only a matter of time before we take our race to the East Coast, and until that time, I am going to continue to work hard and reap the benefits of running.