Early Miles

At thirty-nine, standing at the familiar crossroads of life in Manhattan, I find a peculiar comfort in the ritual of running. I am not the type to lounge in bed on a Sunday morning. You will find me pounding the pavement at six, when the city is still wrapped in its pre-dawn quiet. It is in those solitary moments, before the underground rumbles and before the first delivery lorry blares, that I feel most myself.

Running has been the constant through the chaos. Relationships have come and gone. Jobs have shifted. Friends have married, moved away, had babies, or vanished into new chapters. Yet I still run. I run when I am euphoric, convinced New York is cheering me on with every green light. I run through heartbreak, stitching myself back together with each familiar thud of footfall. Sometimes I run to drown out feelings, and sometimes I run just to feel alive.

A lot of running is dull. If you have stared at the East River for the fifth time in a week, you will know. The magic is not the view or the speed, it is how it rewires your brain. A University of Arizona study found that distance runners’ brains resemble those of experienced meditators. Which means that while I am dodging street cleaners and wondering whether the man who texts “lololol” deserves another date, my brain is quietly teaching itself to be calmer. No app can compete with four miles before sunrise.

Ambivalence

My favourite time is that early Sunday window when Manhattan is barely stirring. No honking cabs. No Instagrammers clogging pavements in Soho. Just me and the pigeons, and occasionally another runner who gives me a solemn nod as if we are in the world’s least glamorous secret society. Those mornings remind me the city can be still, which feels like a secret worth keeping.

People ask why I do not run with others. “Wouldn’t it be more fun with a partner?” But the joy is being alone. I have colleagues, friends, a family group chat buzzing with nieces’ recitals and my mother asking me to try Hinge one more time. What I do not have is space that is mine, where no one wants anything from me. Running is that. It is not antisocial, it is self-preservation.

At thirty-nine, people assume you are meant to be running towards something, a ring, a mortgage, a promotion, or at least the ability to cook more than eggs. And yes, I think about those things. I wonder if I want children, or someone who knows I buy a particular brand of almond butter only because the jar fits neatly into my cupboard. I wonder whether I should move somewhere quieter near my parents, or closer to my sister and my nieces. Then in the same breath I wonder if I need to repot the monstera, or which suitcase I should use for holiday. Running holds all of it, the serious and the ridiculous, with no order and no deadline.

It saves me in more practical ways too. When I am out at six, I am not still at the bar at two convincing myself the man who “works in finance but, like, creatively” is worth another round. There is only so much tequila you can drink when you know you are due on the pavement in four hours.

There is vanity in it. Runners love to act as if they are spiritually elevated beings powered only by endorphins, but let us be real. I like knowing my body can carry me for miles. I like that my legs are strong, even if battered by the pavements. And yes, I like the way my jeans fit.

Running alone teaches you things about yourself. That I can be disciplined yet wildly self-sabotaging. That I can rehearse entire conversations that will never happen. That my playlist makes no sense. Madonna’s Hung Up can cut minutes off my pace, while Cleo Sol makes the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise feel transcendent. Even when life feels chaotic, I can rely on one foot following the other.

The runner’s high is real, though not the Hollywood version. It is not euphoric, it is quieter, a rare sense that body and mind are finally in sync. When it happens, I feel I can handle anything, the creeping suspicion I might die surrounded by unreturned ASOS parcels, even the to-do list waiting for me at my desk. It all feels manageable after a run.

Another study, from the University of Essex, found that even five minutes of outdoor exercise improves mood and self-esteem. Which means I have been dosing myself with free antidepressants for twenty years. If Big Pharma were smart, they would sell trainers for five hundred pounds and market them as “Mood Regulators.”

Resilience

Running was never about medals or finish lines. I have done races, I have got a half-marathon medal buried somewhere, but I could not tell you where or when. The point is the ritual, the consistency, the knowledge that no matter what else is going on, I can run.

So here is my ode to the lone runner. To the woman who leaves the party early because she knows the best part of her weekend is the hour before the city wakes. To the one who cannot explain why she runs, only that she must. To the miles that stitch together joy and heartbreak, certainty and doubt. To the stubborn, sweaty, unglamorous, life-saving act of putting one foot in front of the other.

Life does not come with neat markers. Love, family, career, all of it feels uncertain, and maybe it always will. But when I run, I find proof that uncertainty is not failure. Solitude is not emptiness. Moving forward does not have to mean chasing something. Sometimes it just means moving, letting your mind wander from the biggest decisions to the smallest errands, and trusting that the act of putting one foot in front of the other will carry you through. And if I ever meet someone who gets it, who does not mind that I disappear at dawn and come back calmer, lighter, more myself, then maybe that will be the start of another kind of story. Until then, it is me, my trainers, and the quiet streets of Manhattan. Which is not a bad love story at all.