Keagan’s World

Oh hey there, just stopping in here for a breather.

The post you’re about to read is something that has sat in my drafts for quite some time; the timelines may not make sense, but the takeaways are still all so relevant. Makes sense? No? Too bad, keep up.

First two weeks home have been chaos (for you smooth-brainers this was when I originally wrote this):

• Within 12 hours of arriving to my house I was working (but is it really working on a golf course?)
• 2 days later I left for an annual family trip to Lake Superior
• Less than 1 week later, I left said trip for a friend’s wedding in Petoskey, Michigan
• Drove 3 hours home that same night arriving at 3am in order to work 16.5 hours over the next 24 hours the following afternoon
• Finished my last shift and drove directly to the engagement celebration of two close friends, Andrew and Cass

And now I’m here. It took exactly *checks calendar* two days after everything had slowed down for me to want to bash my head in a wall because I have nothing to do.

Two days. I have two months left…

Oh boy.

The only thing keeping me sane and with some semblance of a routine right now is my running training. If you had told me a year ago that running was going to be the thing I looked forward to most day-to-day, I would be convinced I had to be having a quarter-life crisis. Just to prove that’s a preposterous proposition (ooooo that was fun alliteration) here’s the Quarter-Life Crisis Checklist

1. Drastically changing your physical appearance in some way

2. Spontaneously solo traveling around the world

3. Train for a Marathon

Uhhhhhhhh…

So, maybe not so preposterous.

ANYWAYS, running. If you’re a non-runner like myself, you’ve always heard about this mythical promised land of “The Runner’s High”. A zen that you supposedly reach after a certain distance where all the pain and difficulty of running disappears. A place that feels just about as real as Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny to any of us non-runners who have ever thought “hey maybe today’s the day I give running a try again”. What I can tell you now a month into my training as a fellow non-runner is this transcendent sensation is real – I’ve been there. It is in fact, real.

And it’s made me realize some things.

*Enter modern day Keagan*

1. Starting a new run sucks.

Anyone who tells you differently is a LIAR. Your feet hurt, your knees are sore, you’re breathing hard… and you look down to see you’re running at like 60% of your supposed top speed (Garmin I swear to God you are full of it with some of these Race Predictor projections bro). You are really trying to perform at your best, but ‘your best’ is so far away.

It’s freaking H-U-M-B-L-I-N-G.

It’s the part where most (and maybe yourself) give up and just go “see — running sucks!” And like honestly fair… but if you see through the beginning growing pains when starting out new, the rhythm will come, your foot pain will disappear, and next thing you know… you’re there.

You just gotta push through the initial struggle, but also…

2. The Runner’s High comes at different times for everyone, every day.

It’s so unpredictable. Some days you’ll go out and hit a flow state coming out of mile 2. Things just clicked that day: the weather was good, you had a good night’s sleep, you had some good eats recent enough to be fueled but not so recent you feel like you’re on the precipice of tasting the high protein Chicken, Bacon, Ranch pasta you made for dinner (purely hypothetical of course… definitely not currently relevant…).

You just got it in you that day. And those days feel great. A euphoric feeling like you could keep going at it forever.

Other days you have to gut through 6-7 miles before the pain starts to dissipate. It’s just a tough tough start. You think about quitting every mile, then every half mile, then every quarter mile. People are flying by you with a smile on their face, laughing with a friend. Those days suck.

But… let me tell you: when the High finally does hit… it’s a 1980’s Lake Placid USSR vs. USA final buzzer type feeling. You beat all the odds, you gutted that crap out, and now you’re cooking. And battling past the pain to get there makes it all the more sweeter.

But I also do have to acknowledge that…

3. Sometimes you won’t make it there, but that doesn’t mean you don’t go for it the next day.

It’s not a common thing, but it does happen. Some days just weren’t meant to be your day. But that’s okay. You’re not gonna quit on tomorrow’s run because today’s went poorly (Okay well maybe I would quit on tomorrow’s but the day AFTER tomorrow, no). That’d be silly.

You’ve been having great runs and getting to the mystical promised land day-in-and-day out if you’ve pushed through enough. One bad run shouldn’t destroy all your future greatness. Just maybe take a day to potato on the couch and re-watch your favorite Disney movies or the next episode of whatever the kids are watching these days because…

4. Resting and changing things up is necessary to be happy and healthy.

Not only after a particularly rough day. Always.

If all you do is run, you’re gonna get shin splints, calf cramps, hamstring pulls not to mention the mental exhaustion. While running 50 miles in a week to beat that one D1 track runner on the club Strava leaderboard may sound like a fantastic idea (I know fantastic is exactly the word you had come to mind to describe that) in the moment, that third half marathon of the week will put you in some DARK places. Purely hypothetical of course.

And then your motivation to run is going to bottom out as you wallow in that pain. Purely hypothetical of course.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. There’s a fine line between challenging and overextending yourself. Pushing through pain in the moment is resilience. Pushing through self-inflicted long-term pain is arrogance.

If your quality of life is going to suffer from another run, go play some pickleball instead or something. It’s okay to touch grass. Don’t let running consume you.

5. The goal seems impossibly far, but so many others have been where you are and made it to the finish line

Alright I ran out of creative capacity to seamlessly transition between 4 and 5 so forgive me for the lack of literary ingenuity; remember, I thrived on the beep beep boop of math growing up so this is all still WIP.

ANYWHOOOOO!

If you’re anything like me and hyper-competitive, turn literally anything into a challenge or competition and I’m sold (great manipulation tactic to get me to do something btw, but please don’t do that to me). I mean… I was running’s #1 hater less than a year ago – I REFUSED to ever do it. All it took was TikTok showing me people running their first marathons, and I was like “Pfffffff, cake.”

Two weeks later I was running 5 days / week.

Okay enough patting myself on the back.

The point here is that on week one, I was sucking WIND at mile 4 of my “easy run”. And it dawned on me I had never ran more than 6 continuous miles in my life (thanks for even getting me that far at your hell camp in Ludington Coach who-shall-not-be-named-to-protect-identities-whom-I-am-half-chirping. JK I am forever scarred from the literal in-the-water lake runs you made us do).

Whoa.

How in the world did I think in 15 weeks I was going to rock up to downtown GR and rip that off 4.5x… in a row. Scary thoughts.

Chasing a goal that orbits in territories so outside of anything you’ve ever accomplished is daunting. But the beauty of it is you aren’t alone. Others are doing the exact thing you’re doing. And others have already done exactly what you’re doing now. They had the moment standing before a run and the weight of their goals crushing them in a moment of “Oh shit – what did I get myself into???”

And they made it.

Just like you can too.

6. You will hit The Wall, but you have to keep pushing

Success and progress is so far from linear let’s be real. If getting to the top was that visible and easy everyone would be successful and in turn no one would be. Once the honeymoon of the Runner’s High wears off and the reality of how difficult the last 20-40% to reach the top is, only the few have the drive to make it to the end.

It’s the one who stares mile 20 down in the face when everything is telling them to quit but says “eff you” and keeps chugging. It’s the one who pushed themselves to be better with every run and knows what it takes. It’s the ones who frankly just want it more.

And those are the ones who cross at 5, 10, 13.1, 26.2, or 100 miles victorious, in tears of joy, and grateful for every bit of the journey that took them to the top – the pain and the pleasure.

And if you haven’t picked up on my drift yet, while I may be talking about going for a run, I’m really deep down talking about anything new in life. Each “day” is something new and “running” is just taking a leap of faith.

• Every time you try something new, it’s scary and may be difficult at first
• Sometimes it takes you way longer to get decent and find a groove in one thing vs. another
• Some new things may not click and that’s okay – don’t give up trying new things
• Stop forcing yourself to do things if you aren’t ready and need a rest; stay true and take care of yourself
• When setting goals in uncharted territory, it’s daunting but not impossible
• At some point you may plateau or hit a speed bump in the road, but if it’s something you truly want, those who grit it out will reap the rewards.

Everyone’s got their runs: starting a new job, moving to a new city, raising a kid, learning Settlers of Catan or Euchre (don’t mind the casual subliminal messaging to my friends so I have more people to play with). Whatever your runs are that you are thinking about trying, take the leap and trust that you can make it. Because I once thought I couldn’t run, and 3 months later… I ran a marathon.

Take a chance today – push yourself, and go for a run.