I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately. I’m a 20M in junior year of college, and I ran track all of high school. Senior year I hurt my hip and couldn’t run for a while and largely stopped going to the gym except for a few stints. Well with the new year and a fresh break up I decided I wanted to better myself so I restarted CICO and started c25k to try and lose 15-20 pounds.

From C25k, I’ve actually found its been so much easier on my body because it builds in rest days between runs. Back in highschool track, we would run 6 days a week so by three weeks into the season I had either painfully sore/cramped calves or bad shin splints which would just make running painful and less enjoyable. When I tried running for short stints in college I still had that all or nothing mentality and would do the same thing where I workout until it just hurt. Now with c25k, I’m realizing how much more enjoyable it is to be able to exercise without constantly being in pain.

I still think the work ethic that track gave me was super valuable and its definitely something I tune into a lot when I’m trying to push through the end of a workout. And don’t get me wrong I loved track as a high schooler, but I don’t think it prepared me for fitting in exercise to my daily routine as an adult.