Lifting weights made me look good. Running made me feel alive.

Intro

In January 2025, three friends were trying to convince me to sign up for the Broad Street Run. Ten miles north to south through Philadelphia. I used to run middle distance track in high school, but that was 10 years ago. I could count on one hand how many times I went for a run since then. "There’s a lottery," they said, "so you might not even get picked." What the hell, right? Just to appease them, I said yes.

I got picked.

I'm an active guy but no freak athlete by any means. I couldn't break 5 minutes for the mile in high school. I'd play pickup basketball here and there, but mostly just lifting weights. Almost a decade of trying to get bigger and stronger, and eat as much protein as I could because I was a skinny kid.

Lifting gave me a lot: better confidence, personal goals to chase (like benching 225), and the endorphins after a hard session. I looked good. I felt good. That was all I could've wanted.

Fifty pounds heavier than the last time I ran

There were about four months to train for the race. Long enough to panic, buy four different pairs of running shoes before finding one that didn’t destroy my feet, and slowly accept that some of my lifting days were going to become run days.

That last part stung because I’d built a routine and a muscle foundation over the years. Giving up slots to go run felt like a step backward, like I was trading something that worked for something uncertain.

I didn't want to be the only one of us to DNF. My goal was to at least keep up with my friends and not hold them back.

But I started showing up even when my feet, shins, and knees ached. Three miles became five. Five became eight. My body, 50 pounds heavier than the last time I’d run distance in high school, had to figure out how to carry itself differently.

Runner's high

The benefits lifting gave me didn't disappear. They got louder. Sleep slowly improved in a way it never had from the gym alone. My energy stopped fluctuating and stayed elevated all hours of the day. I gained a better sense of well-being and mental clarity. All these noticeable byproducts pushed me to train harder.

Somewhere around week six, on a Sunday night run, the runner's high came back. It caught me off guard. That specific weightlessness, the point in a run where the effort stops feeling like effort. I'd forgotten it existed. Lifting gives you satisfaction. This was different. More elation. My legs moving on their own.

It made me feel alive. Like there was oxygen flowing to places in my veins that it hadn't been in years.

I'd spent a decade chasing how I looked. But running made me realize I'd been ignoring what feeling good could mean.

I didn’t realize how much it mattered until I stopped

The race was in May. I had real doubts I’d finish or that a tight hamstring would force me out. But the adrenaline carried me across the line. Finishing something ten miles long, strangers lined down Broad Street cheering you on, was nothing I'd ever experienced.

Then I stopped. Back to lifting. The gym felt comfortable. Familiar.

The benefits faded. Not all at once. Sleep got lighter. The sharpness in my days dulled. Nothing dramatic, just a return to the smaller version of how good things had been. I looked roughly the same. I felt less.

Lifting is fun. I feel good after a hard session. But there’s a ceiling to what it does for me that running blows through.

I picked it back up a few times a week

No race on the calendar. No friends pushing me toward a lottery. The knowledge that I felt better when I ran was enough.

The benefits came back fast. Better sleep within two weeks. The morning fog gone. The capacity I'd lost at the end of a workday was back.

It changed how I work too. I sit at a desk most of the day. Focus used to cost me something. Now I get into hard problems faster, stay patient longer, and stop looking for an exit before I’ve tried. The days I skip running are worse, and not just physically.

The thing about running that’s hard to explain

Lifting gives you confidence. You see yourself change, you do something hard, you leave feeling like you earned something. Those are real.

There is a balance somewhere for lifting and running.

Running does not have to be something boring or hard. I know this is just another runner's discovery story but

Running gives you something different: a feeling of being in your body in a way that lifting, or even a long walk, doesn’t replicate. After a hard run, something has been processed. Physical and mental both.

I can’t be more precise than that without sounding like I’m selling something.

My friends probably didn’t think much about it when they told me to sign up. They knew it would be worth it. I thought they were pushing me toward something difficult for no particular reason.

Turns out the lottery accepts about 80% of applicants. The odds were always in my favor.

I needed the push anyway.

Don't become complacent on the couch. If you've never felt runner's high, go and chase a feeling that may change your life.