Running to Catch the Train

I have run about a dozen marathons (and lost count). I have been running for 16 years since I was 12, when I joined my middle school track team. Running is just something I do for fun, but it unfortunately has had very little utility in my life. Although I have worked tirelessly throughout the years to be able to run a 4:36 mile and 15:36 5k, this often does not translate to making real life easier.

I grew up in America, largely in the suburbs, and running has had very little utility. I did not have to run to go to school or work, and often couldn’t — there would be no sidewalks, cars driving fast, and school or work would be too far. In college, I lived close enough to walk or ride the bike, but otherwise, I have often had to drive or take the school bus.

Running is just something I do for fun. It helps with keeping my sanity and is a hobby that means a lot to me, and a means of meeting most of my best friends. I largely don’t run to get places or get groceries.

Ever since I started my new career as a lawyer in Washington, D.C. three months ago, I now take public transportation more than I did when I was in high school and college. Since I live about 50 miles away, close to Baltimore, I drive for 20 minutes and then catch two trains. In the morning, I have to catch a train around 6:40.

There are many days when traffic piles up on the expressway and I get to the station a minute before the train is supposed to leave. Although it is usually a minute or three late, running allows me to not only make the train, but also get a more favorable position at the front of the train. There are days I get to the station about a minute before the train gets there, and running onto the platform saves me the stress of waiting 20 minutes for the next train.

It is, at best, an hour and a half commute one way, and at worst, with lots of delays and traffic, it can be two hours. Running either to the train or the platform when the schedules are tight can save me 30 minutes at a time.

I always got jealous of people who ran to work and ran home. First, this would work out for people I knew who lived anywhere from two to three miles from work. It also requires sidewalks and roads where running isn’t too dangerous, as well as a shower at work.

There is a train home to Baltimore around 5:30 p.m. that I catch — the express train. The municipal train I take to get there sometimes gets to the station only two minutes before the train leaves. Sometimes, there are so many people that we cannot fit on this train. There are two minutes to catch the train. The four people next to me are in the same situation: we have to get off the train and get off two flights of escalators to make it to the train.

If we do not catch this train, this will hold up our commute home for about 30 minutes. I and a couple other people, at least once a week, have about a minute and 45 seconds to make it to the commuter from the platform of the municipal train. At least we need to make it to the commuter train platform so that the conductor at least sees us trying to get on the train and maybe has sympathy.

Some people like to stop on the escalator and relax. There are people that are in a rush. By the time we get off the train, it is an all-out sprint. I can tell we all get frustrated by people who stop on the escalator and take up the whole space. Sometimes, the train is on a track where we have to travel a bit farther. Every time I have run to catch the train, I have caught it, even if I only barely make it. I don’t know about the other people doing the same thing, but I have counted my fortunes that I am largely in good aerobic fitness to do this.

There is another train that leaves about 10 minutes later that goes to my stop. However, this train has a lot more stops, and if I do not make the express train, I get to my stop 30 minutes later. It can be the difference between 30 more minutes I get to spend with my wife after we have both had long days, so there are far-ranging implications every day of being able to catch the express train.

Public transportation has revolutionized the utility of running in my daily life. I don’t need to run to catch the train every day, but there are a lot of days when there are close calls. It helps that I can run for three minutes to make the train, and not be too out of breath by the time I catch it.

I need to run to do more things in my life. I ran to get a haircut the other day, and I do live about a quarter mile from a Subway sandwich store. If I get Subway, I just run there and back, holding the sandwich in my hand and probably looking odd to drivers passing by while doing so.

Beyond making life more convenient, the nice part about running to catch the train or running for other real-life purposes is that I get to add in some miles to my training. I once ran from my work office to Union Station, District of Columbia, the station where all Amtraks and my commuter trains leave from. The train left around 7:15 p.m. I left around 6:55 p.m. It was about two miles, and two miles in 20 minutes seemed like no big deal since I do it all the time.

It was a terrible idea — I was carrying my briefcase with my work computer in it. Even though it was only two miles, it was two miles with a lot of traffic lights. The constant stops ended up adding up about five minutes of time. I was constantly repositioning how I was holding my briefcase, switching hands, carrying it in my arms rather than letting it swing in my hands. Besides the discomfort, I did not want to break the handle off the briefcase. By the time I was a half mile away, the train was leaving in about four minutes. I needed to hustle and start sprinting from the entrance of Union Station to the train platform.

It was not a stressful experience and a really close call. But I did get two miles out of it. On weeks I am trying to hit 80 miles, this does make a huge difference because it was two miles I did not need to run another day. It could give me an excuse to take the day off.

However, the side effect of this is that I will sweat and smell worse on the train from sweating too much. Sometimes I do get a little insecure about that, and I just have to remind myself I will never see a lot of people I’m on the train with again. There are a lot of ways to make this easier, like leaving the work computer in the office, leaving a change of my business casual suit in the office. I am still trying to figure it out to balance my need for convenience with getting used to this commute. There are several times trains are delayed and I have to “take the L,” for lack of a better term, but running has made my life a lot better in being able to fit thread the needle on tight public transportation windows.

Throughout my life, running has been a very expensive hobby. Running shoes seem to cost well above $120 these days for legitimate stability or neutral shoes I like to get, like the Brooks Adrenaline, Saucony Guides, and Nike Pegasus. There are ways to get deals and finesse these prices, like shopping around for previous versions of these shoes. Marathons now cost almost $200 to sign up for. If these marathons are in other cities or are major productions, there are substantial hotel and travel fees, as well. When looking at purely economic terms, running long distances also costs substantial time and energy that can be put more productively into other things to do. Sometimes, the reason I run is just that I’ve been doing it so long to stop, so it’s a sunk cost.

I think there are benefits in terms of mental health, health, and fitness. But on a net level, I pour much more into running than I get in material benefits. I am not at the level yet where I make money from running. I won a 20 mile local race earlier this year. I won the race by around three minutes. For winning, I got a $75 gift card to the running store. I paid $83 to enter the race. Thus, the prize wasn’t even enough to cover the race fee, which I joked about to my friends.

The fact that running can now save substantial time, however, brings me satisfaction I have not had before. When running was not going well, when I was having poor race performances, I doubted whether running was a good use of my time and energy at all. All the times I wanted a break and wanted to quit, I was probably right that the energy would be more productively spent devoted to other things.

I could probably live a more balanced life where I ran once or twice a week for 30 minutes to stay in shape, started lifting, and went home. I was probably right that running did not bring much utility to my life other than anguish when I ran poorly and the friends I made along the way. And for a very long time, I did run competitively because all my friends did it, and I would not be in the loop if I did not do the same. Now, this is just the life I’ve chosen and continue to prioritize, even if I can’t explain a reason why.

Running to be able to catch trains, not be too out of breath, and save time is a very, very small benefit to running after all I have poured into it for the last 16 years. But it is a benefit, and one I am grateful for.

The day I hopefully get good enough at running to make money doing it will be the next step.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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