As a kid, I was not sedentary, but  I never participated in any kind of sports or organized fitness activities. Nobody in my family had an interest in participating in or watching team sports, and I was never encouraged to try out team sports. 

When I was a teen, I picked up jogging a little on my own initiative. When I got to college, I started running regularly and kept it up until I had to stop due to knee and foot issues¹ at the end of 2019. I ran a couple of organized half-marathons along the way. At the time I stopped running, I was running 8-10 miles each, three times a week, and in 2019, I ran a total of 1,200 miles. In almost 40 years of running, I estimate that I ran a total of at least 30,000 miles. Those are not big numbers for marathoners, but it was not just casual jogging either. 

After I stopped running, I swam laps, but I never enjoyed it like I had enjoyed running. The last couple of years, I’ve picked up recreational road and gravel bicycling, and I have rediscovered joy that is similar to what I felt as a runner. I spend 8-10 hours per week on my bike and would ride more if my schedule allowed it. This year, my goal is to ride 100 miles a week or 5,000 miles total. Seven months into the year, I’m on track to meet or possibly exceed that goal. Again, like running, compared to really dedicated cyclists, those are not large numbers, but they are on the higher side for recreational cyclists.

But I’ve never considered myself an athlete, even though the people around me have always seen me as one. A few months ago, as I was researching more about road cycling, it finally dawned on me why: I have always run and cycled just for the enjoyment of the sport. On and off, I pushed myself to longer running distances and I watch my mileage and average speed when I’m cycling, but I’ve always stopped short of actual training plans, e.g., today is my sprint day, tomorrow is my rest day, the day after that is my day for a zone 2 ride, etc. No eating plan; no measuring and obsessing over other statistics, such as heart rate zones, cycling power; no strength training in support of getting faster or covering longer distances. When I looked at people who did those things, I considered them athletes but not me.

But I now realize that I am indeed an athlete. Running was, and cycling is currently, my most important hobby. When planning my week, times to run or cycle have always been the first thing I consider. I enjoy the feeling of physically pushing myself. If I have to take a break from my sport, I feel slightly nervous. The people around me sometimes get weary of hearing about my running or cycling. It has taken some adjustment to change my attitude, but I am now comfortable with the idea that I am indeed an athlete.

The photos in this post are: running the 10-mile Run for the Water event in Austin in 2019, just before I stopped running, and riding in the 45-mile Pinkstrong ride just north of Austin, in October, 2025.

¹ Before the “running ruins your knees!” crowd comes in, running didn’t mess up my knee and foot; my idiocy did. I ran with pain in my right knee and foot for almost a decade. By the time I finally got checked by the orthopedist, the cartilage in my knee was shredded and I have a bunion and hammer toe on my right foot. I will eventually need a knee replacement. The surgery to fix the hammer toe and bunion is pretty brutal, so I’ll probably just live with those the rest of my life, assuming they don’t get worse. Thankfully, these injuries stabilized when I stopped running, so I’m putting off any surgeries for as long as possible.