Catching My Breath While Running

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

I’ve been a runner on and off since I was twelve years old. I started running when I was in sixth grade, I would join my mom for short trail runs. She stopped running because of her knees a few years later. I got back into it during my senior year of high school a little. When I went to college started to run a lot more. I loved running along Lake Michigan and through the city of Chicago.

I’ve never been fast. In fact, I’ve only got slower. I take a lot of walk breaks to catch my breath. But I’ve learned to love it more throughout the years. And I’ve learned to improve my form, which makes running easier, but also connects me with my body in a way that I think only mindful movement can.

I love yoga and used to really enjoy barre. But right now, I can’t seem to be okay with the stillness. I would rather run, lose my breath, walk, repeat. I walk until I catch my breath. But I noticed that the longer the walk break, the harder the running intervals became. I started to limit my walks to thirty seconds, which does not give me enough time to catch my breath. I had to learn to catch my breath while running.

This felt foreign and awkward. It went against everything I believed and practiced about running. I thought I needed to stop to catch my breath. I needed to stop when I felt pain. But now I was catching my breath while running.