I’ve always exercised, but never consistently. Most weeks I run two or three times, but certainly not every day. The last time I remember running daily was more than thirty years ago.
When I was around ten years old, my father would wake my brothers and me at six o’clock every morning. Before most people had even started their day, we were already running about five kilometers together. Back then it felt incredibly hard, and honestly, I didn’t enjoy it much. It was in HK.
Interestingly, after all these years, the question my father still asks whenever we meet is almost always the same:
“Have you been getting any exercise these days, son?”
That simple question has stayed with me.
Every now and then I like giving myself a small challenge. Last year it was taking cold showers. This summer, I decided on something different:
30 days of running, 30 minutes every single day.
There wasn’t a bigger goal behind it. I wasn’t training for a race or trying to lose weight. I was simply curious.
What would happen to my body?
How would my mind change?
Would I feel any different after thirty consecutive days?
August turned out to be a surprisingly difficult month for the challenge.
Some days the temperature climbed above 30°C. Other days it poured with rain. There were vacations, family plans, and plenty of excuses waiting for me.
Running every single day suddenly became much harder than running a few times each week.
While I was doing this challenge, I was also reading Haruki Murakami’s wonderful book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. One idea from the book resonated with me:
Running is less about competing with others and more about competing with yourself.
Murakami writes about marathons, while my runs are only thirty minutes long. Still, every marathon begins with a few small runs. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and perhaps neither is a marathon runner.
I started on August 1st.
The weather was perfect, so I opened Google Health, recorded my first run, and simply started.
Nothing fancy.
Just thirty minutes.
As the days went by, I paid attention not only to my pace but also to my motivation, my emotions, and the thoughts that appeared while I was running.
Two lessons stood out.
Lesson 1: My personal “2–2–2 Principle”
This isn’t science—it’s simply what I experienced.
Two weeks
The first two weeks felt like convincing my body that we were becoming active again.
As someone who works in an office, I spend much of my day sitting. After work it’s easy to move from the office chair to the sofa, then from the laptop to the television or the phone.
That routine becomes surprisingly comfortable.
The first couple of weeks felt like breaking that pattern.
Running wasn’t getting easier because I became stronger overnight. It became easier because my body slowly remembered what moving every day felt like.
The breathing became steadier.
My legs felt lighter.
The soreness slowly disappeared.
Two months
If I can keep going for two months, I think running will stop being something I have to remember to do.
It will simply become part of my day.
Motivation comes and goes, but habits stay much longer.
Even if I have to pause for a week because of illness or bad weather, I believe I’ll naturally return to running because it has become part of who I am.
Two years
Two years is where real improvement happens.
I’m certainly not thinking about marathons yet, but if someone keeps running consistently for two years, I imagine they’ll surprise themselves with what they can achieve.
Talent matters.
Consistency matters even more.
Lesson 2: Motivation starts the journey. Discipline keeps it going
The hardest part wasn’t the weather.
It wasn’t even the running.
It was the mornings when I simply didn’t feel like doing it.
Around the second week my muscles hurt, my feet hurt, and my excitement started fading.
That’s probably where many people stop.
One quote from Murakami stayed with me:
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
Physical discomfort is part of running.
Giving up is a choice.
When motivation disappears, discipline quietly takes over.
I’m still learning what discipline really means, and I think that’s a topic worthy of its own blog post someday.
Today, I’m still running.
But perhaps the best outcome wasn’t my improved fitness.
It was seeing my son decide to join me.
He has now completed three weeks of running thirty minutes every day, and, to my surprise, he genuinely enjoys it.
Running together has become something we both look forward to.
I also realized something simple:
Having a buddy doesn’t remove the hard days, but it makes them much easier to get through.
Sometimes the greatest reward from a personal challenge isn’t what it changes in you.
It’s the people you inspire without even trying.
…And absolutely wonderful feeling in summer is that, after running, you can take a cold shower and feel completely refreshed :-)