Working out when you feel like garbage is almost always the right call. I’ve tested it more times than I can count, and the run has never once made a bad day worse.
But this week showed me the other side of that, and I want to be honest about it. I logged over 45 miles of running in Bali across four days. Two of those days, I got zero work done. Not “a little less than usual.” Zero.
So this one isn’t a hype post about discipline. It’s about what happens when the thing you’re disciplined at quietly becomes the place you hide.
Should you work out when you feel sick or tired?
Tuesday started with an 8am run in Bali heat that was already pushing 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I came back wrecked, then made it worse by eating a big Caesar salad and a brioche right after. I felt sick for hours. Rookie mistake. Eating a heavy meal right after a long run in the heat made me feel worse than the run itself did.
The rest of the morning was a write-off. Couldn’t focus, couldn’t sit still, couldn’t do anything useful.
Later that day I said screw it and went back out. I ran 11 miles. And I felt better at the end of those 11 miles than I did at any point before them.
That’s the part most people don’t believe until they try it. How you feel before a workout is a terrible forecast for how you’ll feel after it. Your brain will give you a hundred reasons to skip. “I’m tired.” “It’s too hot.” “I’ll go tomorrow.” Almost every one of those reasons disappears around mile two.
Monday was the same story. I almost took a nap in the afternoon. I fought it, went out, and ended the day with 13 miles. I wrote in my journal that night that I felt amazing, and I meant it.
This is how I quit drinking, too. Every time I wanted a drink, I went and moved. The gym replaced the bar. Running replaced the crash. Movement has been the one tool that works for me no matter what country I’m in or what mood I wake up with.
So yes, run when you feel like garbage. I’ll keep saying it.
One practical note from Tuesday, because I paid for it: eat light after a long run in the heat. Some fruit, water, electrolytes. Save the big meal for an hour later. I lost half a day to a salad and a piece of bread, and that’s a dumb way to lose a day.
Can exercise become a way to avoid real work?
Here’s the uncomfortable part.
Wednesday I still felt off. I wrote this in my journal: “got zero work done. Still ran 10 miles though.”
Read that sentence again. “Though.” Like the run cancels out the zero.
It doesn’t.
Running is easy for me now. Not physically easy, but emotionally easy. I know exactly what to do. I lace up, I go, the miles add up, and at the end I have a number. 10 miles. 11 miles. 13 miles. Clean, measurable proof that I showed up.
Building a business doesn’t give you that. The work I’m supposed to be doing right now is shipping an app. A real one, on a real URL, with real people using it. That work is messy. Some days you fight one bug for three hours and have nothing to show for it. There’s no mile marker. Nobody claps.
So when the day gets hard, my brain does the math. The run feels like progress. The app feels like failure. Guess which one I pick.
And the honest version goes one step further. On the days I skip work, the run becomes the excuse to feel okay about it. I did something hard, so I’ve earned the right to coast the rest of the day. It sounds reasonable. It’s a trap.
I’ve seen this pattern before. When I got sober, I traded alcohol for the gym, and that trade saved my life. But the thing I’ve learned about myself in a few years without drinking is that the pull doesn’t go away. It just looks for a new outlet. Sometimes it’s my phone. Sometimes it’s a new project. And sometimes it’s something that looks healthy, like running 45 miles in a week while the important work sits untouched.
Healthy habits can still be a hiding spot. That’s the lesson I didn’t want to learn this week.
How do you make hard work as automatic as a workout?
I don’t think the answer is to run less. The running is keeping me sane, sober, and in the best shape of my life. I’m not touching it.
The answer is to steal what makes the running work and apply it to the stuff I avoid.
Here’s what makes my running stick:
It doesn’t ask how I feel. I don’t check in with my mood before a run. I go, and the mood catches up. Work needs the same rule. Sit down, open the laptop, start the first task. Feelings can show up later or not at all.
It has a number. Every run ends with a distance. Business work needs a scoreboard too, even a dumb one. For me that’s going to be one shipped thing per day, written down. A feature, a fix, a message to a user. If the day ends with nothing on that line, I write “nothing,” and I look at it.
It has a place. This week I signed up for a gym in Bali, and I’m setting up a coworking spot close by. Running on the beach, a small gym, and a desk I actually go to. That’s a full setup for well under $1,500 a month. When the environment is built for the work, the work stops being a decision every morning.
And I’m adding one more rule for myself: the run comes after the work block, not instead of it. Earn the miles. If the work block is done by noon, I can run as far as I want in the afternoon and enjoy every mile of it, because nothing is waiting for me back at the desk.
That last part matters more than it sounds. The guilt of skipped work follows you onto the beach. You can run 13 miles and still feel like you’re behind. A finished work block is what makes the run feel like freedom instead of escape.
I’m not saying this from the mountaintop. I’m saying it from a week where I nailed the easy thing and dodged the hard one. I’m in the same fight as anybody reading this.
The real test of discipline
The kid who waved at me on my Friday run doesn’t care how many miles I did. Nobody does, honestly. The miles matter because of what they do for me: clear head, no drinking, energy that lasts all day.
But the miles aren’t the mission. The mission is building something that lets me keep living like this, on my terms, from anywhere.
So here’s where I landed. Being disciplined at something you already enjoy isn’t the test. The test is whether you bring that same energy to the thing you keep putting off.
I ran 45 miles this week. Next week I want the work log to look just as full as the running log.
If you’ve got a habit you’re proud of, ask yourself one honest question: is it fueling the hard thing, or replacing it?