The Sport I Was Never Great At

Why running has stayed with me, even when it was never the thing that came easiest.

I’ve been an athlete for most of my life.

I played a lot of sports growing up, and some of them came naturally to me. I knew what it felt like to be good at something—to feel strong, capable, competitive.

Running was different.

I joined the cross-country team in high school, and I can still remember being one of the last runners to finish. I wasn’t the person leading the pack. I wasn’t collecting wins or discovering some hidden talent for distance running.

I was just out there running.

And strangely enough, running is one of the things that has stayed with me.

Over the years, different sports have come and gone. Life changed. I got older. I became a mother. There were seasons when exercise looked completely different and seasons when running barely had a place at all.

But somehow, I always found my way back to it.

Maybe it’s because running has never allowed me to hide behind talent.

When something comes naturally to you, it can be easy to measure yourself by how well you perform. Running has always asked me to measure something else.

Will I keep going when I’m uncomfortable?

Can I be patient with myself?

Can I appreciate progress even when it’s slow?

Can I do something simply because it matters to me—not because I’m particularly good at it?

Those questions feel even more meaningful to me now.

At 57, I’m running again. I’m not especially fast. Some days are hard. I still have plenty of work to do.

But I’m beginning to realize that maybe running was never supposed to be the sport that proved how athletic I was.

Maybe it has stayed in my life because it keeps teaching me something I need to learn.

There’s humility in being a beginner again.

There’s freedom in letting go of what a mile is “supposed” to look like.

There’s something powerful about showing up without needing to be the best person out there.

And there is real satisfaction in doing a little more than you could do yesterday.

I still want to improve. I want to get stronger. I want to run farther and faster than I can today. I’m an athlete—that part of me hasn’t disappeared.

But I don’t want the pursuit of getting better to make me miss what is happening along the way.

The early mornings.

The difficult miles.

The walks between intervals.

The small victories no one else would notice.

The moment your body does something it couldn’t do a few weeks ago.

Running has been part of my life for decades, despite the fact that it has never been my best sport.

Maybe that’s exactly why it means so much to me.

Not everything we love has to be something we master.

Some things stay with us because they keep asking us to grow.

So I’ll keep running.

Slowly when I need to.

Faster when I can.

And hopefully, always free enough to enjoy the journey.

Run Slow. Stay Free.

-Tina