My dad loves malted milk balls. Every Christmas, we wrap up a box of them and tuck it in his stocking. He knows it’s coming, but he always exclaims with surprise and excitement, as if we’ve gifted him a vintage Patek Phillipe. That’s a quality in him that I seek to emulate: the ability to make even tiny things feel like celebrations. To greet ordinary moments with extraordinary joy.

There’s a lot to love about running, but among the many things, is that you don’t need anyone else. You don’t need anything else. Just you, your own two feet, and a path. Empowering and freeing, you can achieve a kind of simple euphoria—physical exhaustion, mental relaxation—on your own terms. Runner’s high is a very apt phrase.

You don’t need an instructor, or a fancy studio. Or a non-fancy studio! You don’t need music. You don’t need the right conditions, or a schedule, or group, or a trainer bellowing at you. You do not need to pay $30. Not needing any of those things is freeing in another way—less goes wrong. Even a bad run is a great run. It’s just you out there. In structured exercise, I find myself prone to fixating on so much: is the room too hot, is the girl next to me fidgeting, how’s the volume of the music, and so on.