In December 2023, I was bored one day. So many things to do, so little motivation to do it. In the thick of it, a puzzling thought went into my mind.

Screw it. Why don’t I just go for a run?

I don’t know why I thought that thought. But in that moment, I felt like that might have been the first intrusive thought which was actually useful.

I knew that in the past, my legs weren’t too shabby. Almost 4 years ago in Year 2, I ran laps around my classmates, almost clocking a sub 10 on my 2.4 km run. I hadn’t run in a while because of my hectic school life, but hopefully my stamina had stuck with me like muscle memory. How bad could it be?

I hadn’t even run 2 km before I huddled on the floor, tears streaming faster than the vomit out of my mouth. And yet, perhaps it was talking on my walk of shame back home, but yet another intrusive thought came knocking on my skull.

Why don’t I try again next week?

So under the guidance of that annoying voice in my head, I ran once or twice every week after that. At first, I thought the motivation for me running was to pass the National Physical Fitness Award physical test. Then, when I failed NAPFA, I thought I ran for just general “gains”, or personal physical self-improvement. This was until I realised that I had stopped improving in speed for 5 weeks. So for a while, I just ran just because I felt like it, even thought I didn’t know what I was feeling or why I was feeling that way. 

Then, one day, it all clicked. I ran a 2.4, lungs feeling like they were drowning even though I actually ran slower than the previous week. But between my whines and wheezes, I caught myself…smiling?

That was fun.

Sure, it was a weird, painful, masochistic, torturous, excruciating kind of fun. But it was fun regardless.

The bizarre thing was what happened after every run. I would come back home, sweating a litre a minute. My muscles felt limp and taut at the same time, but after I showered, I would always find every action I did to be inexplicably “light”. Surprisingly, I felt energetic moments after running. I felt weirdly alive and free.

I realise now that my first run had been a clue to why I run all the time now. My legs may have felt as if they were pulling me down instead of bringing me forward. However, the heavy burdens of being an 17-year-old high schooler felt lifted off me, even if that feeling only lasted for 2.4 kilometres. 

Despite the shackles on my legs, running allowed me to escape of my hectic world.

It’s meditative, really. When I run, even when I run with earpieces on, all I can focus on is my physique. Am I moving my legs right? Should I speed up or slow down? Am I breathing right? There isn’t really any space left to worry about homework, projects, or friendship problems. And when I pushed those external thoughts out, I could just reflect on myself.

I may not have the time to run as much anymore, but the lessons that running taught me have caught up with every aspect of my life one by one, like a relay. When I was under pressure, I learnt to control my breathing, breathing in, breathing out, breathing loud. When I was faced with difficult decisions, I thought methodically about not just where to move my legs, but how. And at the start of every term, I would always make an effort to look back at the last few weeks before deciding the pace of my next few weeks.

In February 2025, I was bored one day. So few things to do, too much motivation to leave wated. In the thick of it, a familiar thought went into my mind.

Screw it. Why don’t I just go for a run?