Illustration by Joaquin Kunkel

My feet ache and my hamstrings burn. I can focus on nothing except on the fact that my left shoe is a little bit looser than my right, and oh God, do I want to stop and fix that. My strides are off time with the music blaring from my running partner’s speaker, and my breath is bumping along somewhere in between the beat of the bass and the strikes of my feet against the track. Running is simultaneously fantastic and miserable.

I am not built like a runner. Look at me and my body screams powerlifter: short and strong legs, long arms and a bulky frame. I could deadlift one and a half times my bodyweight without having practiced in two years, but last week I went on my first run of 2016 only to find my mile time sitting at 10:55. What I am doing is not economical.

Economics, when boiled down to its core, is the study of how people make choices, on whatever scale you choose. People are directed to do that which is most practical, most efficient and most convenient. It’s a measure of checks and balances and of incentives on incentives on incentives to make people like you and me choose one thing over another. Economics dictates that good choices are those that minimize risk and maximize reward. Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to witness this system function: see people buying chocolates, flowers and fancy dinners in the hopes of wooing some person of interest into choosing them — and getting rewarded with the prospect of a date, sex or that wonderful feeling that we call love.

I started running while I was in the Philippines, in a relationship with a girl named Jill. I am by no means conventionally perfect for her, just like I am by no means conventionally perfect for putting one foot in front of the other in rapid succession. She’s been dancing for years, while attributing two left feet to me would be a generous description. I end up late for dates because of traffic or hangouts with my friends, pissing off both her and her parents. Every other week, we find a reason to cry, and every week, we find a reason to have a bad day and not want to talk to one another. What I am doing is not economical.

I’m three-quarters of the way through the run and my time is better than ever. I pray to God that I can finish on pace. I think about the place where I learned to pray — the place where Jill and I met. I walked through the double doors of Santuario de San Antonio as an anxious high school senior to a room full of college students, dressed up in crazy costumes and emitting high-pitched screams in a place that I knew as the grounds for wakes and baptisms. They told me that they were trying to be like Jesus, while still being crazy teenagers and twenty-somethings. They told me that they loved me before they ever met me. I’ve got to admit, I’m a cheesy bastard but I laughed out loud. Loving someone you know nothing about? Someone whose name, face and voice you only learned half an hour ago, and could just as easily forget? Not economical.

I fixate on the reason I run, on the pain in my ankles, on the last time I felt so tired. I remember the 64th Antioch Weekend, the last retreat I went on before leaving home. By Sunday night, at the end of the weekend, I was on the floor, coughing and wheezing, throat as on fire as my legs are now, and she was sitting by my side, holding my hand, telling me that we’d done it. All of the tears and all of the discoveries that led us into Antioch — we helped to build those things for someone else. Maybe we did love them, even then. Damn it all, I don’t want to be economical. I think of God and the air placed in my lungs, the spirit placed in my body, the love that I feel from those around me, and I sprint the final 200 meters — throat, chest, back, legs, feet burning, blood boiling, neck tilted back like Pastor Liddel on a chariot of fire. I cross the mile line.

We start from nothing and try to build our way into love. We strive to change and improve ourselves to make people notice us and to make ourselves more attractive, and we buy love with behavior just as much as we do with money. People start by thinking that they deserve love, and try to prove it. I cross the mile line.

I think of how much faster I can go. Faith in love starts from everything. It starts from a choice: to love someone, to be loved by them, regardless of whether you deserve it or not. And it grows into realizing that you don’t deserve it. I am not built for running, and I’m not built for loving Jill either. I’ve put her through more pain than I care to share in such a small article. Economically, we are unfeasible. Yet, we’re still together.

Jill and I don’t achieve love economically; we decide on it, out of faith. I started running because of faith in that love. I don’t improve myself for the sake of getting someone to love me; I improve myself because someone else already does. I develop and shape who I am because I desire nothing more than to be deserving of what I already have.

My head aches and my eyes are heavy. I can focus on nothing but the fact that my alarm is set for 6:00 a.m. and the clock reads 1:30 a.m., and oh God, do I want to stop and sleep. My mind is drifting in and out of the conversation, and the “I love you’s” we utter are getting slurred.

Loving her is simultaneously fantastic and miserable. And she gets that. She tells me it’s time to say goodnight. Tells me that she loves me. Wishes me good luck for the day ahead, and tells me to have fun on my run.