- I work out because I love my body, not because I hate it. Every time I'm working out or if my mom sees me outside she always assumes that it's to lose weight or to get in shape, but I love the endorphins and I love knowing that it's like mind over matter, like when I go for a run, every time I'm like « I can't do this! » and then I do it, every time regardless of... I've been hungover and I went for a run and it's been the best ever. I don't look like a runner, but I'm a runner.
I feel like a lot of the time, exercise is perceived in a specific way, like to get a goal, there's always a goal in exercise that's physical, a lot of the time people don't think of mental goals. It's something I realized, especially over lockdown, I couldn't go to the gym and remember my mom was like « Are you gonna be okay? », she was genuinely concerned... And then I had stopped going for runs and enjoying nature more and then I realized I wasn't running for a specific goal physically, so ...

- You mentioned endorphins, I've heard a few people lately mentioning how practicing sport helps their mental health/mental balance, is it something that you have noticed, how it affects your mood and well-being?

- Definitely! Running literally keeps me sane, it's something to just get away from the world. It doesn't take long time. I feel like that's the thing, other things take so long, like journaling even I can be absorbed for hours, running can be just a little half an hour run, you know, and you just have time to think, you kind of have time to be in your own head... Running proved me that my mind is so much more powerful than I expected, so I feel like that is me showing myself that « I can do this! ». And I always listen to very powerful songs which I feel like helps.

- It sounds like meditation, sort of...

- Yeah, exactly! It literally is! And it makes me grateful, my body loves me to run, it loves me to move!