Running started with early struggles, including wheezing and stopping quickly, but consistent evening jogging gradually improved endurance and recovery. The runner developed pride in an IT band that helped drive leg motion, completing marathons and trail runs. About ten years later, Strava introduced route sharing and social feedback, but it also created time-consuming habits around logging and commenting. Obsession with metrics expanded from calories to pace, time, elevation, and structured weekly training categories. Heart rate monitors, running clubs, and books followed. Eventually, logging became a compulsive chore, and enjoyment of running declined.
"I stuck at it. I put on the same shoes and went out at the same time every evening, and after a while, things got easier. I started to run for longer, wheeze a bit less, and could walk like a normal human being the next day. And ever since, I've never gone more than a few days without going for a run."
"I am a cursorial being: I can jog for hours and am the master of a single directional plane. In the words of one masseuse, "You have the tightest IT band I've ever felt!" She meant it as a bad thing. I wore it as a badge of running pride. That IT band snaps my legs back and forth with a metronomic life of its own."
"Then, about ten years ago, someone introduced me to Strava. "You have to get it, Jonny, you'll love it. We're all on it." They were all on it. I did get it. I didn't love it. The problem was that I became addicted to logging my journeys. I wasted hours of my working day hunting out routes, seeing who liked my runs, and commenting on a stranger's run in Auckland."
"I became obsessed with metrics. At first, I fixated on the calories - I tried my best to look as svelte as possible. Then I looked at the pace, time, and elevation. I divided my week into tempo runs, hill sprints, intervals, and endurance jogs. Strava was the gateway drug that led me to heart rate monitors, running clubs, and a small library of books I've never read. And then I noticed something worrying: I wasn't enjoying running anymore."
Read at Big Think
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