The 25-minute exercise that changed my life

These days, I rarely do this particular workout because I focus on other routines. But tonight is the night — I will go back to the basics.

I started doing this workout exactly four years ago — in late spring of 2020.

Did anyone guide me? Did I read about it somewhere? My memory escapes me. Maybe my oldest son mentioned this workout, but I was my own coach for the most part.

I wasn’t a runner then. And what does it mean to be a runner anyway? I had always enjoyed running, but couldn’t be called an athlete. I was overweight, and my running shape was mediocre. My previous marathon had been over a decade ago. After several attempts, I finally broke the four-hour mark in New York in 2010.

In 2020, I didn’t decide to become a ‘runner.’ I had no goals. I just started to run a little more. At the time, we lived in Irvine, California. There was a high school near our home — University High School — and a private college, Concordia University. Both places had running tracks that were pretty empty because of the COVID shutdowns. If I wasn’t road running, I’d jog ten minutes to either the school or the college.

I would then do this exercise: run 400-meter intervals. A very fast lap, rest for a minute and repeat ten times. I’d do this twice a week. The alternative to 400 meters was six sets of 800 meters with a slightly longer rest.

Week after week, I could feel and see my body transform. My speed increased and I was losing weight, a couple of pounds every week.

There was pain in that exercise, but the simplicity of it transcended the discomfort. Most of us can run fast for a couple of minutes, can’t we? A short run with acceleration feels almost like a primeval instinct. Look at kids. Sometimes, while I’m doing my workout, I see little kids trying to compete with me, even if just for a short period of time. It’s in their DNA — to run, to have fun, to compete.

Of course, repeating the fast run ten times with very little rest is challenging. But in my experience, this most basic interval training is the most transformational exercise anyone can do to get into shape.

These days I run three times by three miles at a pace faster than I used to do my 400-meter repeats four years ago. I’m bragging, I know. But it’s not the pace that matters. 400-meter intervals will always play a special place in my athletic journey. When I grow older, I’ll run them slower but I will always love my one-lap intervals.

Fast, raw, flat. Fire. Pain. Power.

I’m not a heavy Instagram user but I created a reel honoring the 400-meter intervals!

I write about running on Substack