I lived in a co-operative house my first year at university. At the beginning of spring term, every morning for a week, we went for a group run.

Out of 50 young men I was consistently in the back of the group. I barely kept up with the heavyset gamer and the guy with the broken leg.

Part of it was my lack of regular exercise, but I knew for a fact that many of the guys leaving me in the dust never worked out either.

As a child, I experienced aerobic limitations due to a congenital heart defect. I sometimes felt abandoned and ashamed when I couldn’t keep up on group runs or hikes. The physical problem was mostly fixed after an operation I had in high school, but they couldn’t operate on the anxiety I’d developed.

The pattern always looked the same when I tried to run:

Choose a route and begin running it. Experience panic when my heart and lungs start screaming at me. Try to push through it. Be forced to stop, gasping for breath, feeling exhausted and like a failure. Decide that I hate running and I won’t do it.

I came to prefer solo hiking and backpacking for my cardio development because I felt no pressure to push myself at an unsustainable speed. I went years without running.

But in the last month or so, at age 32, I’ve been jogging again — and enjoying it for the first time.

In recent years I’ve learned how to do a few things that set me up for success:

Set realistic goals.

Listen to my body.

Be gentle with myself.

A month ago I was visiting the San Diego beach and decided to try jogging again.

This time, I wasn’t attached to any outcome. I didn’t care if I “made it” to the end of my route or not. Who was watching? Who was I responsible to? No one.

My goal this time was simple: elevate my heart rate, but not too much.

If lying in bed is 0% exertion, walking is 25%, and the gasping-for-breath burnout is 100%, I wanted to stay at 50–75%. Something that would get the blood pumping but not feel like death.

I decided I’d only run until I noticed those first hints of breathlessness and anxiety, at around 80% exertion, and then immediately slow to a walk and catch my breath. I could resume running if I felt relaxed and energetic again, but no sooner.

My usual route was about 1.2 miles round trip. The first day, I may have only jogged 100 feet for every 400 feet I walked.

But I didn’t care how bad this ratio was. I was enjoying the waves, the sunset, the birds. And, for once in my life, I was enjoying the jogging, because I’d eliminated the part that made it terrible before:

I no longer feared that I would push myself to the point of panic.

Since I’d learned how to sense when my body was reaching the limit and was gentle enough to respect it, I began to build trust in the idea that I was a safe person to go jogging with.

After only a few days of practice, I was surprised to find that I could jog the whole 1.2 miles without feeling terrible. I even got to a point where I thought “I can keep jogging without strain, so can I push myself faster?”

My increased bodily awareness from years of yoga and meditation helped me think about efficient posture and biomechanics. This became my point of focus, rather than the impulse to stop running.

My heart and lungs simply needed some time to increase their capacity. They never had that when I pushed too hard and quit in frustration.

I’ve been intrigued enough with this new running development to keep up the habit after leaving San Diego, and I’ve noticed more improvements: I require less of a warm-up. I’m able to run longer and push my speed.

With the mental and emotional security of knowing I’m allowed to stop running at any time, it has become easier to zone out and let my mind wander while my body works. My jogs are becoming more meditative.

I find that it helps take my mind off articles I’m writing so I can come back to them with a fresh perspective.

Other times, brand new ideas pop into my head when I’m running. In fact, I went for a jog this evening and came up with a concept for an article. You’ve just finished reading it.