At any given time in New York City’s Central Park, people are running. Some call themselves runners, others don’t. Their motivations range from targeting a new personal record to simply taking a mental break. Some are pacing fast, others are taking it slow. Different and diverse as the undefinable city they live in, they all have one thing in common—they are running their way.
In partnership with New Balance, Runner’s World is spotlighting athletes who run the famous park and what those outings mean to them. Each specifically speaks about how running in this iconic space gives them the opportunity to reflect on their lives. Below, NYC-based running coach Kai Ng shares how running Central Park allowed him to reconnect with himself and relocate his purpose. Explore more inspiring Beyond the Run stories here.
When I look back on myself as a kid, I see that I was drawn toward one thing and one thing only: play.
Even though we talk about sports like they’re synonymous with competition, I refuse to believe that’s true. And I know trophies and records weren’t what made me start running. No, it was never about winning or losing for me.
All through my adolescent years I dipped my toes into different sports: bowling, basketball, track and field, you name it. Just to play. I loved how happy being an athlete made me. But then you graduate from school, and that innocent relationship with physical activity kind of fades away. It becomes much harder to find that feeling of play once you enter the real world. Life intrudes. Things become serious if you let them. I got a nine-to-five job and lost that part of myself for a while.
A couple years later, I reconnected with an old friend of mine from elementary school. He was training for the Marines, and part of his routine included running over the Manhattan Bridge every day. We’d meet up every Monday night and I’d accompany him across the bridge. I felt joy returning to my life, solely as a result of moving my body again. We kept that tradition going and gradually a few friends joined us. We’d meet up, run together, and then get frozen yogurt after.
Chinatown, the neighborhood around the Manhattan Bridge, was our home base. As I got better at running, my radius slowly expanded north. Eventually I was running every day from the bridge to Central Park. The more intense my runs got, the more fuel I needed, and Chinatown was the perfect place to fuel up. I became a regular at an amazing restaurant that specializes in congee, which is an Asian rice porridge. I’ve theorized that congee is the perfect fuel source. Everyone talks about carbing up with pasta and stuff like that, but if you look into it you’ll realize that a lot of elite athletes are actually eating grains. They’re so much easier to digest while giving you the carbs you need. Congee is my secret weapon.
After a while, I felt ready to take the next step as a runner. I signed up for my hometown marathon in 2015. That’s when Central Park really became my second home. As a place, it’s just perfect for runners. The full loop is 10 kilometers; the middle loop is four miles; there’s one that’s exactly one mile. Everything is perfectly measured. And it’s just such a joyous place. You see so many people running at different experience levels. Training there, I really felt that sense of play again. After I finished the race, I knew I’d caught the bug. I was fully in love with the art of running.
Discovering My Flow
In February of 2017, I attended a wellness retreat hosted by my then-girlfriend, now-wife. I’d been consistently marathoning for a few years, but felt like much of my life was dedicated to a career path that I did not care about.
While leading the retreat, she talked about needing to find your flow-state. She explained this as a state of mind where you’re so fulfilled by what you’re doing that you aren’t even thinking about it. What did this sound like to me? It was play! Luckily, I already knew that my flow-state existed somewhere in the experience of running. The joy I’d felt on those countless routes from Chinatown to Central Park had taught me that.
Recognizing that I was searching for a purpose, my girlfriend discussed this quote with me: “You can simply change the world by sharing your tomatoes with your neighbors. Then they will have the seeds from which they can grow.” Running was my tomatoes. And I wanted to plant some seeds.
I came back to New York City after that retreat and immediately began cold-calling coaches in the city, begging one of them to take me under their wing. Coach Cain responded and allowed me to learn from him. I quit my nine-to-five job and walked dogs for a living, so I could focus on my coaching education. It was there that I learned the three things that must be true for anyone to find their individual greatness:
- You have to learn to do it properly.
- You must enjoy what you’re doing.
- You have to do it consistently.
As a coach, it’s my responsibility to help people check these boxes. When each of these are accomplished, you are primed to enter your flow-state. Now that I’ve found mine, it’s important I help others find theirs.
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