I hated long-distance running ever since school. I was the best at sprints, but I wouldn’t run long distances at all—I’d just say, give me an F. One of the nastiest sensations from childhood: you’re running, your side is stabbing with pain, and there’s a taste of blood in your mouth. So they gave me the F, and I wouldn’t even show up for class on the day everyone had to run cross-country.
Like everyone else, I made attempts to start running in the mornings back in high school, but I never made it past the second run. I just didn’t understand this sport—or this form of exercise—at all.
I thought anyone who could actually enjoy running farther than 400 meters was crazy.
Then more and more of these crazies started appearing around me. At some point I realized that among my acquaintances and friends—and I knew for a fact they were perfectly normal—there were people who weren’t just running, but training for marathons and half-marathons.
They talked about it so enthusiastically that it got me thinking. Then Yulia and I—she shared my attitude toward disgusting long-distance running completely, one hundred percent—decided to give it a try. The winter was mild, and right after New Year’s we started running. We ran maybe three times, and then I was put under house arrest for a year. Not meant to be, I thought.
This summer I decided to fight fate and try again, and today I ran my first 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). Slowly, but I ran them.
This whole long preamble was just so you’d understand why this post is so ceremonial, as if I’d won an Oscar (there will even be acknowledgments below). I’ve hated running all my life so much that this 10K feels like an Oscar to me.
Most importantly, I’d like to convince those who’d like to run for their health, but remember that school experience—blood in the mouth and a stabbing pain in the side—and think running just isn’t for them:
People, it’s really not hard at all, and it genuinely can be a pretty enjoyable way to spend your time. If I ran 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) for the first time at 39, then you can do it too. At school they just do stupid things and torment kids, killing any desire they might have for exercise. Give it a try and it’ll work out. Run slowly—that’s the whole secret. There’s no pass/fail grade, no one’s going to give you an F, and that woman in a tracksuit with a stopwatch doesn’t exist.
Now for the acknowledgments. Thanks to:
Vlada Khomenko, who once wrote me a letter: It’s a shame you don’t like running. It’s the kind of sport every politician should support. You don’t need anything except running shoes, and millions of people can do it. Try it—you’ll like it, and people will run after you too.
Alexander Khomenko and Sergei Sirotenko, who dragged themselves all the way to Maryino (a district in Moscow) at 8 a.m. on Saturdays from the other side of the city to run with me my first few times. Special thanks to Sergei for the key piece of advice for a beginner runner: run slowly, and when it feels like you’re running slowly, run even slower.
Yulia, for agreeing to run with me and keep me entertained with conversation.
Yevgeny Roizman, whose traditional posts saying, "Anyone who wants to go for a run, come to Plotinka (a well-known embankment in Yekaterinburg). We won’t run fast, and afterward we’ll have tea with baranki (ring-shaped bread rolls)" always looked very cool.
Zhenya, a designer at the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), who I recently found out does triathlon. Every time I walked past him I’d think: "Wow, the guy does triathlon—I really ought to try running 10 kilometers after all".
Most importantly, thanks to all my fellow park exercise nuts. The grandmas with Nordic walking poles, the crazy old men in athletic shorts and no shirts, the heart-attack survivors marching out the 10,000 steps their doctor prescribed, the workout guys doing pull-ups on the bars in gloves, the women in colorful 1980s-style bandanas, the dudes in funny headphones, the elderly people with portable radios, the hellish cyclists in space helmets, and all the rest of them. When I run, I feel like part of this funny little community, and I like that.
Of course, I couldn’t do my first long run without some higher purpose, so I dedicated it to all the good people who are fighting an important battle in the first elections in many years where the opposition has been allowed to participate—in Kostroma Region.
Run, citizens (but come back).
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