Becoming a Runner
The Defining Turning Point That Changed Everything
My favorite German running podcast (did I really just say that?) Vom Laufen has just claimed that my 11th Running Anniversary article inspired them to pick up the topic of runners’ biographies. In their latest episode, they wonder why running, or rather starting to run, is such a life-changing event for so many people. So worth listening to!
I'm going to echo the two hosts of Vom Laufen, Juliane and Christian, and take a look at my own drastic biographical break when I started running.
The Before
It would be a lie to say that my life sucked before I started running. It didn't.
The year was 2013, and I was 34 years old. I was an artist manager for some really cool bands, had just started my own new music project GWLT, had just bought an original vintage sunburst Gibson Les Paul Classic (that’s a gorgeous electric guitar), was on vacation in Ireland like almost every year, and had just gotten my feet tattooed. Sounds great, doesn't it?
However, my physical condition was not so great. At that time, I weighed a proud 105 kg, was out of breath when I had to climb more than one flight of stairs (I lived on the second floor), and basically knew only two states of being: fatigue and stress. Sometimes stress was positive, sometimes negative.
The decades of touring with my own and other bands had begun to take their toll. Sitting in a tour bus for several hours every day, completely overtired, eating nothing but gas station food, only to jump around on stage like a madman for an hour in the evening, then going back to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning, and then doing it all again for up to 30 days in a row, several times a year, does not go unnoticed. I know only a handful of musicians who manage to stay mentally and physically healthy with this lifestyle. I was not one of them.
When I wasn't sitting in a tour bus, I was at my desk. In addition to an artist agency where I managed young, up-and-coming bands, I also ran a record label. Two, actually. And I had a regular 9-5 job.
On top of that, I was doing most of the organizing for my own band. Everyone contributes what they are good at, and I have always been good at planning and organizing stuff. So, in addition to songwriting, rehearsing, studio recordings, and live performances, I took on a lot of those tasks.
Playing in a band is a full-time job. Without pay. Even worse, you usually end up paying for it out of your own pocket. Not to mention payment in terms of your time and energy.
But the biggest problem was not money, or time, or stress. The biggest problem was that my life was pretty one-dimensional. Everything, really everything, revolved around music. And as dazzling and exciting as the life of a musician may seem from the outside, if you have nothing else in your life, nothing to balance it out with, you will eventually burn out. I had (almost) reached that point in 2013.
The In-Between
When running came into my life, I pushed it away at first. I was often asked why I didn't do sports. Aside from being slightly overweight and having terrible blood pressure, I had no significant limitations that would have prevented me from doing so. However, instead of seriously asking myself this question, I had an extensive catalog of excuses ready to dismiss the topic each time.
“No time, I have more important things to do, songwriting is on the agenda, an album is on the agenda, a tour is on the agenda, and then it starts all over again. When exactly am I supposed to be exercising?”
In my own perception, however, I saw myself as an active person. I was never averse to a mountain hike or a bike ride. Looking back objectively, it had little to do with sports. Every few months I was putting my body into a state of shock with such rare activities. It was neither healthy nor sustainable. I probably just wanted to prove to myself that I was fit in theory. But I wasn't. Not at all.
There were two pivotal conversations that ultimately led me to start running. Here is a brief summary of both.
The first conversation was with my Burger Club friend Christian Lotter. At a barbecue on the banks of the Isar river (something you do when you live in Munich), he asked me the aforementioned impertinent question. Namely, why I wasn't doing any sports. As always, I fired off my catalog of excuses and hoped that Christian would be satisfied. He was. But I wasn't. That night, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth. I felt bad about my cheap excuses. For the first time, they felt like... cheap excuses.
The second conversation was with Björn Esser. He was one of the few people in my music circle of friends who was a runner at the time. We met at a festival, and he had already run a lap around the nearby lake that morning. Out of politeness, I asked him how his run went. He replied: "Not so cool." Not so cool? Really? Up to that point, I had been firmly convinced that serious athletes were always, without exception, enthusiastic about their sport and that every training session was a total high. The fact that a run could be "not so cool" and that it was allowed to be that way was a total eye-opener for me. From one second to the next, the subject of sport became much more accessible to me. Tangible and "normal" in a nice way.
The consequence of these two crucial conversations was an experiment. A self-experiment.
Instead of thinking or planning long and hard about how sport (I intuitively chose running because it is so low-threshold) could come into my life, I wanted to pretend for a while that it was already the most important thing in my world. The purpose of this test was to see what would really fall by the wayside if I put sports first. First of all. The result of my little experiment was surprising. At least for me.
Nothing fell by the wayside. Nothing at all. I was able to incorporate running into my daily routine without having to give up anything else. Nothing important, at least. I might have watched an episode or two less of Netflix (Game of Thrones was huge at the time), or shut down my laptop half an hour earlier when I wasn't productive anymore anyway. But I didn't have to cut back on any other part of my life, not even my beloved music. Who would have thought? I certainly didn't.
So now I was a runner. And it felt terrible.
Okay, I'm over-exaggerating, but it took a good dozen runs before I felt anything like joy for the first time. But until then, the pride of accomplishing something great and the good feeling of exhaustion afterwards were reward enough.
The Moment
I still have a very clear memory of the moment of the click. It was at the finish line of my first ever 10K race at the Munich Marathon event. The finale in the Olympic Stadium was so incredibly fitting as a backdrop for the magical moment, as if it had been scripted for a cheesy movie. In that second, I knew I wanted more. I knew I was hooked. A truly transformative experience.
Cut! From here on, our stories are very similar, dear reader. Once you've "clicked," there's no turning back for most of us, and one thing leads to another. Isn't that wonderful?
The After
What exactly has changed after that? Not much, and yet everything.
I continued to play in bands until 2016, I continued to manage artists, and even my penniless, time-consuming record labels survived for another year or two.
What had abruptly changed and continued to change were my priorities. It wasn't even a question of whether I had to cancel a band practice to do an important training session instead. It was more a question of energy. I made sure that I had enough left to keep running. To make sure I did, sleep and nutrition suddenly came into focus. More than ever before in my life. But also avoiding stress.
I didn't want to just squeeze in running, I wanted to enjoy it. Celebrate it. To immerse myself in it.
This desire was in stark contrast to my previous lifestyle in general and my life as a musician and music professional in particular. For a while, running and music still ran parallel, but the new path I had taken could no longer be reversed. A new chapter had begun.
The Today
Today, I look back on that time with great gratitude and humility. I made many important decisions intuitively. I didn't have to rack my brain, dig myself out of a hole, or ask others for help. Everything came to me the way it was supposed to.
Other than my decision to live Straight Edge, my unconditional love for my wife Lisa, and my ever-growing dedication to writing, there have not been many similarly impactful life changes that have had such a massive effect on me.
But there's no need because I'm happy with where I am today. Or to put it another way: I really like my life.
Everything Not Running
The founding of my running brand Willpower overlapped with my transformation from musician to runner. What a coincidence. Anna Hughes gave me the opportunity to explain the history and motivation behind Willpower on her "Laufen und Leben" podcast.
We explored the world of the running misfits, the formation of the Willpower Athletes, as well as the brand's hardcore-punk and straight edge roots. If you are interested in more details, then tune in:
Thanks again to Anna for the great second interview! I thoroughly enjoyed it.