How to Start Running Even If You’re Only Doing It to Stop Your Body from Rotting

Image: Daniel Schwen/Wikimedia

A beginner's guide to running, the painful hobby of postponing your body's inevitable betrayal by a few fleeting years

So you’ve decided to start running even though you don't enjoy it.

Nobody likes the feeling of their legs giving out or the burning sensation of your lungs collapsing in protest. You’re running because deep inside, you’ve realized you're a time bomb of blood, tissue, and organs just waiting to fail. Because if you don’t run, you’ll soon discover the heart that’s kept you alive has decided to give up mid-shift.

Good news, though: running can delay that horrific reality by a few years, maybe even decades, if you’re lucky! Here’s how to embrace this soul-crushing routine even if you’re only doing it to stop your organs from shutting down like an abandoned park.

If you don’t run, your body will literally dismantle itself

Fatty sludge is building up inside you and waiting to choke your arteries until they resemble clogged drinking straws. If you let this process continue, your blood vessels would narrow so much that blood no longer reaches your organs. Things would then quickly spiral out of control.

One day, a piece of this gunk will break loose and travel to your heart, completely cutting off blood flow. Heart cells start to die within minutes, incapable of surviving without oxygen. The pain will radiate through your arms as the necrosis spreads, eventually leaving sections of your heart permanently useless.

If the clot decides to head straight to your brain, you’ll get to experience an ischemic stroke. This is where neurons start dying almost instantly, depriving you of mobility and the ability to swallow food without choking.

Every time you skip a run, these slow, horrific processes creep closer.

Buy overpriced running gear because that will definitely save you

Start with a smartwatch that tracks your steps, heart rate, and other fun reminders that you’re running on borrowed time.

Compression socks are another must. They’ll keep your veins from pooling blood in your legs. Throw in some expensive shoes that promise to protect your knees.

None of these will make running less painful, but you’ll look prepared when you inevitably collapse on the street.

Every step prevents your body from slowly imploding

When you run, you force your heart, lungs, and muscles to work harder, which is the only reason they haven’t given up on you yet. Without exercise, your heart will weaken, losing its ability to pump blood efficiently. This leads to fluid accumulating in your lungs and limbs, a condition known as congestive heart failure. If you think running is exhausting, try dragging yourself up a flight of stairs while your lungs are drowning in fluid.

Running also keeps your blood vessels flexible, reducing the risk of a blockage that ends with paramedics struggling to restart your heart while you're incapable of forming thoughts because your brain is shutting down from lack of oxygen. Every step you take is a direct counterattack against your body’s natural inclination to self-destruct.

Turn your deep, paralyzing fear into a fun fitness goal

Treat your runs like a video game where the stakes are your continued existence. How many kilometers do you need to run to undo the damage caused by the lifetime of fast food you’ve consumed? How many more runs will it take before your doctor stops mentioning “borderline hypertension” during checkups?

Science says jogging for 30 minutes a day can reduce your risk of a heart attack by 50%. That’s not a cure, but it’s better than ending up on the operating table while a surgeon digs around in your chest, muttering about how you really should’ve gone for a walk once in a while.

Running hurts, but so does dying slowly

Running isn’t supposed to feel good. Your legs will ache, your lungs will burn, and you’ll feel like collapsing halfway through. But this discomfort is nothing compared to the suffocating pain of letting your organs fail. Imagine fluid filling your lungs as your heart weakens, making every breath feel like trying to suck air through a stirrer. Or the helplessness of watching your left side go limp as a stroke cuts off blood flow to half your brain.

Compared to those fates, the burning sensation in your thighs and the stabbing in your side are downright charming. If you can endure the misery of running now, you will spare yourself the misery of watching your body shut down later.

Embrace the reality that running won’t save you forever, but it will save you for now

You’re still going to die eventually. Maybe it’ll be from kidney failure, maybe cancer, maybe something as dumb as choking on a grape. But running gives you time. It prevents your arteries from clogging long enough for you to enjoy the next holiday and your lungs from turning into useless airbags for a while longer.

You don’t have to love running. You don’t even have to pretend to like it. But whenever you step outside and force your body to move, you’re buying yourself a little more time. So lace up your shoes because no one else will keep your cardiovascular system from collapsing. ■