Me (on the left) and some of The BTG Crew on our local mountain!
Running Isn’t Just for Runners — Why Aerobic Capacity Matters for Everyone
“I’m not a runner.”
That was the story I told myself for years. It was convenient, it was comfortable, and it gave me an excuse to avoid something I thought wasn’t “for me.” Running was for the wiry endurance athletes, the people who seemed born to float effortlessly over pavement or trail. It wasn’t for the guy who grew up more in love with weights and strength sports, and who thought of cardio as a punishment rather than a practice.
But here’s the truth I’ve since learned (and it’s a truth I want you to sit with as you read this):
Aerobic capacity isn’t just for runners.
It’s not reserved for marathoners or triathletes. It’s not something you build only if you plan to toe a starting line.
Aerobic capacity is a foundation. It’s the gas tank that fuels everything else you do in life. And when you expand it, you’re not just making yourself better at running, you’re making life itself feel easier.
That idea ties directly into something I wrote about in my Train for Life article (you can find it at www.btgfitness.com/blog/train-for-life). Training isn’t just about aesthetics, chasing personal bests, or competing. At its core, it’s about building capacity. It’s about preparing yourself to live a life that demands energy, resilience, and the ability to keep going when things get tough. Aerobic training is one of the most underappreciated ways of doing that.
So whether you identify as “a runner” or not, this article is for you. Because having a strong aerobic base is one of the best investments you can make in your health, your performance, and your everyday life.
Why It Matters More Than You Think
Let’s strip the science back to plain English for a moment. Aerobic capacity is your body’s ability to take in oxygen, deliver it to your muscles, and use it to create energy. The higher your capacity, the more work you can do before you fatigue. Simple enough.
But here’s the thing: it doesn’t just matter for athletes. It matters for you, right now, in your daily life.
Everyday Capability
When your aerobic system is strong, you’ve got more in the tank for the things that actually make up your life. Playing with your kids in the park without needing to sit down after five minutes. Hiking with friends without feeling like you’re dragging the group. Knocking out yard work without needing a nap halfway through. Even just moving through a long workday without crashing in the afternoon — all of it is easier when your aerobic base is solid.
Sleep and Recovery
A surprising one for many people: regular aerobic exercise improves sleep quality. And when you sleep better, everything gets better. Mood, focus, memory, appetite regulation, stress tolerance — they’re all tied to how well you rest. That’s the domino effect of aerobic training. It doesn’t just help you when you’re moving; it helps you when you’re recovering.
Metabolic Flexibility
This one is a bit more technical but hugely important. A robust aerobic system makes your body better at using different fuel sources — both carbohydrates and fats. In plain terms, you become metabolically flexible. You can go hard and use carbs efficiently when you need to, but you can also cruise at a steady pace and tap into fat stores without crashing. That flexibility is a marker of health, longevity, and performance. It’s also why I recommend training without exogenous fuel for sessions under 90 minutes. Doing so helps you more fully deplete glycogen stores, train your body to handle both carb and fat utilisation, and improve overall efficiency.
When you put it all together, aerobic capacity isn’t just about building a bigger “engine” for sport. It’s about building a system that supports everything else you want to do, both in and out of the gym.
The Bigger Gas Tank
Think of your aerobic capacity as your gas tank.
If you’ve got a small tank, everything drains it quickly. A few errands, a short workout, a night of poor sleep — and suddenly you’re running on fumes. But when you build a bigger tank, those same demands barely make a dent. You have more to draw on. More margin. More buffer.
That extra capacity shows up in obvious places, like how long you can sustain exercise, but it also shows up in subtle ones. It means you’re less winded carrying groceries up the stairs. It means you recover more quickly between strength training sets. It means you can walk around Disneyland with your family all day and still enjoy dinner at the end of it, instead of collapsing in exhaustion.
The gas tank analogy also explains why people who neglect their aerobic base often feel like they “run out of energy” even when they’re otherwise healthy. They’re driving around in a vehicle with a thimble-sized fuel tank. They might be strong, muscular, or lean — but without aerobic capacity, they burn out fast.
And here’s the beauty of it: anyone can build a bigger tank.
Choosing Your Vehicle
Now, let’s talk about how to actually build it.
Running
This is the most straightforward option, and yes, the one I resisted for years. Road running is fine, but I gravitated to trail running because it’s more than just pounding pavement. Trails blend hiking and running. The terrain changes, the scenery distracts, and the varied demands make it easier on the body and the mind. Trail running taught me that “running” doesn’t have to mean chasing times on asphalt. It can mean moving through nature at a sustainable pace, sometimes hiking the steeper sections, sometimes jogging the flats, and sometimes just soaking it in.
Other Steady-State Options
Running isn’t the only way. Cycling, swimming, rowing, hiking and even brisk walking all count if they’re done consistently and at the right intensity. The key is steady-state effort: something you can sustain for an extended time, where your breathing is elevated but you can still carry on a conversation.
Notice I’m not including group cardio classes here. In my experience, they’re often too short, too stop-and-start, and not truly steady-state. They might have their place for fun or variety, but if your goal is to actually build aerobic capacity, you need sustained, uninterrupted work.
What matters less is the specific modality and more that you do it consistently, at an appropriate intensity, and for a long enough duration.
Shifting the Story
This is where my own story comes in. For years, I labelled myself as “not a runner.” It was a convenient identity. I was a strength guy. I loved lifting, I loved short bursts of effort, but I avoided long runs like the plague.
That narrative stuck until I started experimenting with trails. Something shifted. The combination of hiking and running, the connection to nature, and the absence of pressure to hit a specific pace opened the door. Suddenly, I wasn’t forcing myself into someone else’s mould of what “a runner” should be. I was just moving, breathing, and discovering a new way to build capacity.
I wrote about this identity shift in more detail in my recent Mindset Monday article, The Story You’re Telling Yourself About Who You Are (you can read it at www.btgfitness.com/blog/the-story-you-tell-yourself). The short version? Our stories aren’t fixed. The labels we give ourselves are often self-imposed limits. And when you challenge those labels, you unlock new possibilities.
That doesn’t mean everyone needs to become a “runner.” It means you don’t need to dismiss running (or any aerobic modality) just because you’ve decided it isn’t for you. The story can change.
Moving Mindfulness
There’s another layer to steady-state training that often gets overlooked: it can be a form of moving mindfulness.
When you’re out for a long, steady session, there’s space to tune in to your body rather than tuning out. You notice your breathing rhythm, the feel of your feet hitting the ground, the little niggles and discomforts that show up, and you learn to sit with them rather than immediately distracting yourself.
In preparing for my first Ultra on my 50th birthday, I logged roughly 1,000 kilometres of combined road and trail mileage over about 11 months. And here’s the thing: I did the vast majority of that training without music. Not because I don’t enjoy a good playlist, but because I wanted to really tune in.
Trail running was (and still is) my preference, but I did a lot of road running in that block of training to build as robust an aerobic engine as possible. By removing the distraction of music, those hours became a practice in awareness. I learned to focus on breath, on posture, on form. I learned to recognise discomfort for what it was and to move through it instead of trying to drown it out, and also learned how to adjust what I was doing on the fly to manage and correct the things that caused the discomfort.
Mantras like “relax your feet, relax your ankles” kept my lower legs and feet happier as the miles piled on. “Head up, tall posture, get on top of your hips” made the low back discomfort I’d experienced in years past all but disappear. Without approaching this training with mindfulness and tuning in to what my body was telling me, these breakthroughs wouldn’t have been possible.
That practice was transformative. It sharpened my mental focus, deepened my mind-body connection, and refined my running mechanics. So much so that in the late stages of my Solstice Run this year, when I was forced to mix in some run-walk to get to the finish, a running partner commented that while my walks looked ugly (I was limping and visibly worn out), my runs still looked smooth and efficient. That didn’t happen by accident. It was the product of tuning in, consistently, over thousands of minutes of practice.
How to Build Your Tank
So how do you actually put this into practice? Let’s keep it simple and sustainable.
Start small. Some is better than none. If you’ve only got ten minutes, take it. If you can walk around the block after dinner, do it. Every step counts, especially in the beginning.
But don’t stop there. The literature shows benefits from as little as 30 minutes, but for best results, you want to build toward 45 to 90 minutes of steady-state work. That’s where you start to see significant improvements in capacity, endurance, and metabolic flexibility.
The intensity for the vast majority of this training should be moderate. Think about a 4–5 out of 10 on the RPE (rate of perceived exertion) scale, solidly in Zone 2 if you’re tracking heart rate. At times you can brush up against a 5–6 RPE (almost touching Zone 3) but most of your time should be spent in that steady, sustainable Zone 2 range.
And here’s the key: for sessions under about 90 minutes, skip the sports drinks and gels. Train without exogenous fuel. This allows you to more fully deplete glycogen stores, improve efficiency, and enhance metabolic flexibility, training your body to use both carbohydrates and fats effectively. Once you push past 90 minutes, fuelling early and consistently becomes important to sustain the effort.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
🚶 Start small. Even 10 minutes is a win.
⏱ Build gradually. Work up to 45–90 minutes of steady-state work.
❤️ Keep it moderate. Aim for Zone 2 (4–5 RPE), brushing Zone 3 (5–6 RPE) occasionally.
🔄 Choose steady modalities. Running, cycling, swimming, rowing, brisk walking.
🥤 Fuel smart. Under 90 minutes: no exogenous fuel. Over 90: start fuelling early.
🧘 Train mindfully. Whenever possible, leave the distractions at home. Tune in to your body, your breath, and your mechanics. This awareness is where breakthroughs happen.
📈 Prioritise consistency. One long session a week is good, two or three is better.
Think of it as training your system, not just logging miles. Every session is an opportunity to build resilience, improve efficiency, and expand your gas tank.
Don’t Go It Alone
One of the best ways to make this kind of training stick is to do it with others. Running, cycling, or hiking with a group makes the time pass more quickly, adds a social component that makes the work fun, and helps you stay consistent. When you’re alongside others, you’re more likely to show up, more likely to stick it out when it gets tough, and more likely to push yourself to improve.
More Than Just Cardio
Aerobic training doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s one part of the bigger picture of fitness.
Strength training builds muscle, bone density, and resilience against injury. Aerobic training builds capacity, recovery, and longevity. Put them together, and you’ve got a balanced, durable system that can handle whatever life throws your way.
This is what I mean when I say fitness is about broad-spectrum capability. It’s not about specialising to the exclusion of everything else. It’s about having the strength to lift, the stamina to last, and the resilience to recover.
And that’s why aerobic training matters, even if you don’t see yourself as a runner. It’s not about preparing for a marathon. It’s about preparing for life.
Final Word
Here’s the point I want to leave you with: running isn’t just for runners.
Aerobic capacity is for everyone. It’s for the parent who wants to keep up with their kids. The professional who wants more energy at work. The retiree who wants to hike without stopping every five minutes. The everyday human who simply wants to feel capable, resilient, and alive.
You don’t need to call yourself a runner. You don’t need to compare yourself to anyone else’s pace, mileage, or Strava stats. You just need to build your tank. Start where you are. Keep showing up. Expand your capacity, little by little.
Because when you do, you’re not just building fitness. You’re building freedom.
And if you’re unsure how best to fit this kind of training into your own life and goals, don’t hesitate to reach out — I’m always happy to point you in the right direction. And if you’re local to Abbotsford and want to join me and The BTG Crew, we’re out on the roads and trails almost every weekend as a group (and I run most days during the week as well). You’d be more than welcome!