What 15 Years Of Running Has Taught Me About Finances
I went for a run the other day - my first time in what feels like a while. Months probably. Set aside for surgery, illness, recovery and then just pure lack of motivation, it felt good to lace up my running shoes and take off down the road.
I started running when I was 14, encouraged by my father who was a runner in his high school days and by my older brother who seemed to take after my father’s natural ability for it, unlike me.
In the past 15 years, I have run on a team while despising it, I have also run on a team while purely enjoying it, I have run for myself for fun, I have run for competition and for pure joy. I have run through bone fractures, the flu, and knee injuries. I have set running on the back burner to recover from injuries and illnesses and pregnancies, along with sheer exhaustion and lack of motivation.
It has always been there, ready and waiting, when I have been ready to start up again. I ran the other day for a few miles through aching muscles and swarming deer flies. Running just seems to be a sport that I enjoy immensely despite the obvious elements of torture. It’s not easy to be a runner. I have had to muster courage, desire, and strength to keep up the sport that I love all these years.
I have learned that while much of the heart of running is in racing, it doesn’t have to be. I run today, and for most of the past 10 years, for myself. Not for the competition, not for racing. I don’t have to be the best or the fastest. I have found other benefits that make running worthwhile like health and wellness. I also have learned that competing with myself to push myself further, exclusive of what anyone else around me is doing, is worth more than a place I could finish in a race. I only measure my progress against myself. Other people train differently, have different bodies with different limitations and expectations. To measure myself against anyone but me would be a mistake a sure way to give up and never run again.
The same is true of finances. Everyone has different needs, different sized families, different living expenses, different things that make them happy. To measure my financial success and frugality against anyone but myself would set myself up for failure. To see one person spend less on such and such while I spend more doesn’t matter. Perhaps we live in different areas, perhaps that person’s priorities are different than mine. Some people would say spending money to fix a home is money wasted. For them, perhaps. For me, not at all. I can only measure my success in terms of my past. Am I doing better than I was last year? Two years ago? Am I making progress and reaching *my* goals? No one else’s goals - my goals.
Much like other things in life, running brings out joys, triumphs, hurt, and struggle. It’s not always easy. There are bumps along the way, setbacks, times of just having to throw in the towel and say “another day, but not today”.
Frugality tends to show the same trends in my life. Some times I can get going on months of excellent spending habits, saving for tomorrow, making great decisions. Then an illness comes along, a surgery, a car repair, a home repair, whatever it may be and frugality goes out the window. Sometimes I have just had to say “another day, but not today”. Today, I have to spend this money and I will because it’s just how things go. I’ll take a break, with no guilt and do what needs to be done, knowing full well that when I’m ready and things are back on track and in place, frugality will be there waiting for me.
Life isn’t perfect, nor is a decade and a half of running. There are struggles, injuries, times that you just have to stop and say for the sake of sanity and health that it is time to lay off for a little while. Enjoy things another way. Do what needs to be done.
And then lace up your shoes and hit the streets again when you’re ready, at your pace and heading toward your goals.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:21 am
Good for you! I’d rather have my teeth and toenails pulled out with blunt pliers (simultaneously) than go running, but you made it sound ever so (slightly) appealing. I think you did a great job of comparing the two areas!
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 am
Hey, my name is Ryan. I am thinking about taking up running. I am 20 and I need to execise more (spend too much time cooped up blogging). I am also an entrepreneur so the relationship between running and finances was great for me.
Keep the great posts coming
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 am
I have a love hate relationship with running too - much like my finances. Some days I get on a roll, and I don’t mind going for a run - or making a budget. Other days it is like nails on a chalkboard for me..
as you said up above:
Do what needs to be done.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 am
Great inspriration! Run while you can still do it. Wish I could again, but walking is now my joy.
Please come on over to my blog because I’ve given you an award!
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:49 am
what a great analogy! i have long enjoyed running and swimming- in a sort of non-competitive, health-and-wellbeing way. i’m a new frugalite…..and this fortuitous comparison will certainly help me bring something i know well to something i am trying on for size!!!
thanks for this insightful posting.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Wow! Sounds like you really do enjoy it to run even through aches & pains. Like you, I enjoy running… It’s a shelter for me…a getaway where I can just relax from all the stresses in life. I’ve never run for competition. I’ve always just ran for myself… I haven’t been doing much of it lately (work, school, etc.). But when I get the chance I hit the pavement.
There are two things that I find calm in from life’s day-to-day stresses: running & reading a good book (lately that includes feeds in my feedreader too).
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
This was such a comforting post. After months of cycling, me and hubby tried running last month, In the first two weeks we did well constantly getting better and running farther, but then the aching calves and bruised knees took over, and there were days when we contemplated going to a physician to get them healed. Reading your experience, it seems its not so uncommon. Maybe I should give it another shot.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I love running. Great post.
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I run on a treadmill now, but about a year and a half ago I was running outside for 40 minutes, 4 times a week. It feels great! I need to get back in shape so I can start doing that again (I find running on a treadmill sooooo much easier than running outside, but running outside is more fun).
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:32 am
Nice post!
It’s interesting though… Why do your rules of frugality go out the window when something unexpected arises? Unexpected expenses always happen — why do we even think of them as unexpected? Shouldn’t part of living frugally encompass expecting the unexpected and planning for it?
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
@Lisa, that is true, they are part of life and they are more or less “expected” and planned for. When I am so used to not spending much money on anything, it does feel like I am not being frugal when I pay a huge chunk of change for something like huge medical bills or a car repair. Although I know all the being frugal is what makes paying them without gathering debt possible. Just like with running, I can prepare and train and that is what helps me get through a race well. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t pain in there somewhere though
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I have been struggling with this exact issue. That just answered it in a nutshell. THANKS! What a relief.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:54 am
This is a great analogy, but also gave me the kick in the pants I needed to start working out again today. I picked up running (a little too quickly, I think) for about six months, but had to stop due to injury. I always forget how motivating that endorphin rush can be. When I run (or work out in general), I am full of energy and ready to tackle just about anything.
August 11th, 2008 at 9:00 am
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