Above Average Jogger

This isn’t a story about a dramatic injury or a rock-bottom moment. It’s more ordinary than that, and maybe that’s the point.

About two and a half, three years ago, running just quietly stopped. Not all at once. It was more like it got squeezed out.

At the time, my wife and I were saving for a house. On top of my regular 40-hour week, I’d picked up a night shift at a restaurant three days a week just to stack some extra cash. Then, in the same stretch, we were planning a wedding and buying that house simultaneously. Everything was happening at once, and something had to give.

Running gave.

I was still moving, still going through the motions of exercising, but I wasn’t giving it what it needed. And honestly, at the time, I didn’t have anything left to give it. We got through it. Got married, got the house. Came back from the honeymoon.

That summer after the wedding, I tried to get back into shape. Really tried. But something wasn’t clicking. I felt slow. Not dangerously out of shape, but nowhere near where I used to be. I’d go out, push through a run, and come back feeling like I was fighting my own body instead of working with it. After a while, I stopped fighting.

There wasn’t one specific moment where I looked in the mirror and had a revelation. It was more like a slow accumulation of feeling not quite right, and eventually deciding I didn’t want to keep feeling that way.

Going into the winter of 2025, I started working out again properly. F45 mostly, weights and structure, just showing up consistently. It wasn’t running, but it built something back. And now, spring 2026, it feels like the right time to actually return to the road.

Part of it is practical. I’m getting older. The ability to just lace up and go, to have that kind of fitness, doesn’t stick around forever if you ignore it. I’d rather build it back now than chase it later.

My first run back this year wasn’t awful. Slow, yeah. But the F45 winter meant my lungs weren’t totally shocked, and there’s something genuinely good about hitting the pavement when it’s not negative thirty outside and actually feeling your legs respond.

That’s where Above Average Jogger starts. Not at the finish line of some race, not with a perfect training plan. Just a guy in his 30s in Toronto, getting back to something he loves, writing about it honestly along the way.

Gear reviews, comeback miles, Ontario running. All of it written for people who are serious about running but aren’t pretending it’s easy.

If this sounds like you, welcome. More coming soon. — AJ