Less than a week ago, I could barely squeak out two miles of running. My body has been achy, and my sciatica has flared up each day. Getting out of bed proves one of my most difficult daily tasks. Sneezing might be worse, though. Screams always follow sneezing.

This stems from a lack of care. The blessing of my sciatica is that it really only bothers me if I'm not taking care of myself. If I exercise every day, it tends to fade to the background and sometimes disappear entirely.

Leading up to the end of June 2025, I hadn't had a flare-up in months. I was consistently running harder, longer, and faster than I had in years. And then, one picturesque summer morning, I hit an unseen patch of mud and launched my head straight to the sidewalk, bursting my chin open and fracturing my jaw in two places.

Needless to say, I didn't lace up the running shoes for some time. Even through all the mandatory rest, my body held up pretty well (unlike my weight, which dropped to skeletal after getting my jaw wired shut). Then in October, my son fell ill, and we lived in a hospital for eleven days. We didn't leave the house much after returning home. Sedentary was now essential living, and it's a habit that seeps into the bones.

My son's story is a for another time and place. I don't know what I'm using this blog for, outside of daily time to hone some simple tech skills and stretch my writing muscles, but I did want to use today's post to let you know that this past weekend I retired the running shoes I'd been wearing during the fall. I ran a 5k (in two bursts) in them, and then drove to the running store to get new ones. Today, in the new shoes, I ran 3.30 miles without stopping.

I ran the 3.30 shortly after returning from my son's first flag football practice of the season. Last season was cut short by an emergency surgery (his, not mine), and he's back out there like nothing ever happened. We both are.

I used to make goals and proclamations like the following:

These are all goals I've set at some point, some of them simultaneously. I'm not doing that anymore. They never work.

A decade ago, I dropped 60 pounds, and I didn't do it by enlisting in a nutrition or fitness program or even really setting a goal outside of a broad "Let's lost some weight." I just ate better. Exercised more. Didn't restrict myself.

Without restricting myself, I found I just didn't want to down the vices I'd downed my whole life. I'd occasionally pig out, but I'd feel worse than I used to, so I'd do it less-and-less frequently. I didn't beat myself up over slip ups, though. Once, I cut out alcohol for a full year. How did I find the willpower to do that? Easy. I never set out to avoid it in the first place.

So I've just been setting out to run. This weekend I ran two days in a row, which I never used to do. Running every other day was once important to my desire to build a habit. But what about my desire to simply run? I've lost track of that. I run simply because I love it, so when I hit a 5K today, I just kept going. I love the struggle. I love pushing myself. I get the runner's high every time I run if I allow myself to just run. So that's what I did. That's what I'll keep doing.

Can you tell I've been reading Oliver Burkeman's The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking?