Running with Expanded Awareness

A path to experience enjoyment while jogging

Exercise is like art. You’re not going to get really good at it without putting in the reps. It’s not always going to feel easy or fun. Yet, it’s hard to imagine a great painter who hates painting or a great writer who hates writing.

At the same time, you don’t have to pursue greatness to enjoy making art.

Kids don’t fall in love with writing or painting because they experience the grind of it. They get swept into these worlds when they discover the joy of creative expression — the flow of losing themselves in their words or the strokes of their brush.

So, instead of rushing to optimize exercise, we should first focus on experiencing joy during it.

When it comes to running long distances, I had to learn this the hard way.

A Journey to Enjoy Jogging

For most of my life, I hated jogging. I wanted to enjoy long runs, but they felt dull and tedious. I was jealous every time friends would describe a runner’s high. They spoke of settling into a state of magical bliss. I experienced a state of disgruntled rumination and physical pain.

So I kept trying and hunting for a magic bullet.

I experimented with the typical advice. I signed up for races to create external motivation. I tagged along with runner friends for accountability and companionship. I listened to my favorite podcasts only while I ran. I found music playlists designed around specific beats per minute.

These tricks sometimes made the process a bit more enjoyable. But I still dreaded lacing up my running shoes. I still didn’t enjoy the actual jogging itself.

Looking back, I was unconsciously orienting my quest around running faster, further, and more frequently. I told myself I wanted to enjoy running, but I evaluated myself on my pace and distance. I strapped on a heart rate monitor and got frustrated if it went high.

It was only when I finally stopped trying to optimize my running that I began to fall in love with it.

It started on a stifling July morning in North Carolina that felt like stepping outside into a steam room. Maybe it was the comical heat and humidity. Or perhaps my frustration had just reached a breaking point. But that day, I ditched the fancy watch, left the headphones at home, and made a commitment to focus exclusively on the experience of jogging.

I started moving slower than normal. Like embarrassingly slow. I began to notice each step. The rhythm of my feet and the burst of energy up my legs. I felt the hot air entering my nose and my lungs expanding to welcome each breath. The sensations were strangely pleasurable.

Previously when running, I would fixate on a point ahead of me, chasing the destination. This time, I let my eyes soften and my vision widen. The space around me took on more shape. I felt myself moving through the world in a way I hadn’t before. The colors of the trees brightened. The sounds of birds got louder. Even the subtle gusts of the wind took on greater intensity.

I felt alive. The landscape felt alive. My body was moving, but there wasn’t any effort or grinding. There was just bliss. After years of straining, I was finally experiencing the joy of jogging

A sunny fall morning on my favorite running trail

Try it Yourself

The good news is I don’t think you need to struggle for years to find enjoyment during jogging. In fact, my bet is that most people could actually do it today.

In the years since, I’ve experimented with replicating the experience for myself and others. There seem to be a few small tweaks that consistently lead individuals to experience more flow and enjoyment while jogging.

Here’s a step-by-step approach if you want to play with it yourself:

Embrace the intention

This works best if you shift your orientation away from optimizing the outcome toward experiencing the activity. So let go of any focus on distance, pace, or heart rate. The goal is to simply move your body continuously and discover what happens.

Pick a beautiful location

Our environment matters. If you’re dodging cars or hostile pedestrians, it’s hard to fully experience the jog. Instead, try to find a protected trail where you feel safe and free to move. Ideally, surround yourself with nature, like in the woods, by a beach, or in a park. Even large cities have options. Some of my favorite runs occurred on the Highline in NYC and El Retiro Park in Madrid.

Start slow

If you never enjoy jogging, you're probably going too fast. Try to find a pace you can comfortably breathe out your nose and carry a conversation. If this means starting with a brisk walk, then start with a brisk walk.

Ditch the headphones for nature

Stay with me. I love running to music and losing myself in a story. But at first, these pull us out of the experience of running itself. They distract. We use them to dissociate from the discomfort. We get swept away in the beat of the music. Instead, listen to the birds chirping and the trees rustling. Open up to the sounds of your environment.

Use panoramic vision

Don’t fixate on a single point or destination ahead. This type of vision with a narrow field of focus is associated with being alert or stressed. Soften your gaze. Embrace your peripheral vision. Expand to see how much of the landscape you can take in. Notice how the trees and ground slowly recede as you move forward. Experience the depth and dimensionality all around you.

Expand your awareness

By now, your awareness is open and expansive. Feel into the space above and behind you. Sense the vastness of the sky above and the distance stretching backward. Welcome all the sensations bubbling up within you. Invite all the sensations from the animate world around you. Lose yourself in connection to your environment.

Don’t close or judge your experience

The final step is to simply stay here. Ideas and stories will likely come. Your mind may try to wrestle control of the experience — comparing, evaluating, or even judging. These thoughts are just sensations like everything else you’re experiencing.

Just welcome it all in and keep on moving. Perhaps that magical runners high is just around the corner.

Becoming a Runner

A funny thing happens once you experience joy and flow during an activity. You return to it with new excitement. You engage in it with more enthusiasm. Consistency develops naturally. You begin to push your edge. You discover that increased difficulty nurtures the flow. That intensity feels good. That progress is satisfying.

You begin to increase the distance and the pace of jogging without losing the enjoyment.

You become a runner.

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Thank you for reading. If you have any reflections or questions, please reach out in the comments or by replying to the email.

This approach pulls from and points toward the work of many others. Thanks to Matt Fitzgerald for inspiring me to embrace running slowly. Thanks to Paula Sager for teaching me to embody and experience the space around me. Thanks to

Michael Ashcroft

for helping me learn to play with expanding my awareness. And thanks to Russel Delman for encouraging me to bring embodied mindfulness to everyday activities and just be with the experience.