S is for Speed
I went for a run with my friends yesterday. I ran 3.77 miles. ‘Nothing extraordinary,’ you might think. but it was my longest run since July 2025.
Injury struck last April or May (I forget / have blocked it out), and I thought I’d given myself plenty of time to heal, but Achilles tendinitis struck, and it struck hard. It was my first serious injury in at least five years. I wrote more about that last time.
Since then the constant, nagging pain has given way to mild discomfort. I can now perform my rehab exercises every day without flare-ups, and I have been doing them. It’s allowed me to very gently add a mile a week to my runs for the past couple of weeks, so those 3.77 miles were fraught with worry. Would I be able to push past the three-mile barrier without discomfort? Well, here I am the following morning, feeling as if it was March 2025.
That run yesterday was around the filming locations for Buffy the Vampire Slayer 25 miles south of me in the City of Torrance. It was organized by the LA Cinephile Run Club who I wrote about a couple of years ago.
Towards the end of the run, there was a quarter-mile, slightly downhill segment where I did my usual of pushing the limits, of course. I thought I’d stretch my legs. Now, having read about my near-year-long injury crisis, you might be shaking your head a little, and rightly so, but I’ve been listening to my body and this felt right.
The whole run was great. Strava says it was a 10 min/mile pace, but that included stopping at four locations. I was rested. There was no pain. I wanted to test my body. I wanted to run fast.1
A few seconds into my gallop, I wanted to know if I was fast like I was before the injury or if it just felt fast. I was fast. I was probably running at 75% capacity – still holding enough back to feel safe – but was traveling 30% faster than my ideal easy pace. It felt amazing.
I adjusted my cadence to incorporate the slight downhill decline. There was no wind, but I heard the air whooshing past my ears. My joints felt as loose as they ever had. I experienced the sensation of unadulterated freedom. As I flew along the sidewalk, it felt like I could do anything. It felt like my body was finally my own again.
For a few seconds, at least. Like I said: I haven’t run over three miles in over six months, but right now I am thankful for the little bit of speed that downhill piece of pavement afforded me.
This is Running - an update on goings on
With my book being released in six weeks, I’ve had a whole extra layer of work added to my schedule, and it’s made my days slightly congested, and maybe a little overwhelming. Especially with the context of <gesticulates wildly> the state of the world.
It’s been two weeks since I last sent a newsletter out. I’m certain that you haven’t noticed, but I am still compelled to explain why. This is my little corner of self-indulgence, after all.
I’ve been arranging live events across time zones (yes, I hope to meet you in your own backyard), and I’ve been the subject of interviews. On that note, it feels strange to have the tables turned, and I am quickly understanding how all those bands that I used to interview felt when talking about the new body of work they were releasing into the world. I always wondered why they were often so listless and non-plussed when I was asking them about their new record.
I’m immensely proud of this book, and I believe that you’ll enjoy owning it (please pre-order it - links below), and finding new ways to talk about it is proving to be an enjoyable challenge.
Anyway. I can’t wait to share my plans with you. Soon! Until then…
This is Running purchase links
USA - Amazon US | Bookshop US | Barnes & Noble
UK - Amazon UK | Bookshop UK | Waterstones
For this Thursday, I’m writing a piece about the slice of culture that you engage in wherever you go. What do you think it is?
Running Sucks Haiku of the Week
Patience: a virtue
Holding oneself back is hard.
Think of the future.
A little restraint is even more difficult after tasting the delights of a little speed. This running lark can be quite addictive, after all. I write about that in the first few paragraphs of This is Running.
If you are a paid subscriber to Matt Fitzgerald’s Endurance Mastery newsletter, you can read those paragraphs in an excerpt.
CONNECT WITH ME - Instagram / Strava
Note: this isn’t about the speed that I was going. My idea of fast is different to yours. My idea of fast today is different to my own idea of fast in 2010. But it’s nice to run fast, so it helps to think about effort in terms of percentages of your current capacity and then the speed of you going fast relative to you going slow. There is no need for times or paces in this framework.