By Cami Yee
Over the years, I have collected an abundance of memories from different hobbies. From calligraphy and piano to traveling and journaling, I loved getting to be creative as well as see the world. Recently, I have accumulated a new hobby that I really enjoy: running.
However, it wasn’t always like this. Despite being a soccer player, I had always despised running outside of practice on my own. The 2 miles we were forced to run every weekend were the worst part of my week. I dreaded these runs because if we didn’t run it in under 16 minutes, we were faced with sprints at practice the next week. Running had always been a stress-inducing activity that I hated with all my heart. If you had told me a year ago that I love running now, I would have laughed!
The turning point for me came after I medically retired from soccer. I wasn’t able to get the same amount of exercise that I got from soccer and began turning to other activities in an attempt to remedy my loss. Walking wasn’t strenuous enough, tennis was hard, swimming wasn’t available, and I didn’t have anyone to play pickleball with. One day, I tried running and have been doing it ever since. Not pressuring myself to meet a certain time instead of a certain distance, made me much more productive and motivated to run. I started running a mile a day, increasing my distance over the weeks, and saw significant improvements in my health.
It was an exhilarating feeling determined to run every day. I had never experienced the motivation to run by myself before, but it helped me in all aspects of my life.
- Sleep – I have trouble sleeping and need strenuous physical activity to simply fall asleep. Running helped me sleep and therefore, made me more excited to run.
- Happiness – I felt happier after I started running. Having a goal and getting to meet that made me feel so fulfilled as well as proud of myself.
- Mindset – Running allowed me to set goals and achieve them. Seeing my improvement after consistency encouraged me to be consistent in other areas of my life.
Overall, running has been such an amazing hobby to have in the last few months. I have gotten significantly better and I am going to be running my first 5k soon! In addition to this, I’ve also gotten my dad hooked on running and we run together before dinner almost every day.