Runners I Know: John Gonzalez

Real talk with one of my oldest friends.

I first met John Gonzalez in the press box at Veterans Stadium before an Eagles game in the early 2000s when we were working at different newspapers. Through a combination of fate, happenstance, and just plain luck, we wound up at Boston magazine together a few years later. (That’s also where John introduced me to my wife, for which I’m eternally grateful.) 

For as long as I’ve known him, I don’t think I ever saw Gonz go out for a run. In fact, I vividly remember him making fun of me whenever I’d head out for one. So, I was pleasantly surprised when he started picking up the habit a few years ago.   

When I called him up to see if he’d be interested in doing this interview, I told him that while we’ve known each other for a long time, I’ve never known him as a runner. What follows is a really fun interview that revealed a side of my friend I barely knew. 

Important plug: You can hear Gonz on Sports Illustrated's new flagship podcast, Sports Illustrated Weekly, where he serves as host. Download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

John and his wife, Colleen Wolfe, in all their SoCal glory.

Paul Flannery: When did you start running? 

John Gonzalez: I ran all throughout middle school and high school because I was a wrestler, and I also ran cross country to keep in shape for wrestling. We were doing like 5-8 miles a day for wrestling practice. And then I got to college and was like, fuck this. 

So I stopped. And I guess it was a decade ago, around 2011, I got up one day and was like, ‘You know what? I haven’t run since high school. I think I’m going to go for a run.’ I’ve been running ever since. 

That first run back really sucked. I think I might have gone a mile and a half and was like, ‘This is brutal.’ You find your groove after a little while. 

And then, during the pandemic I ran my first-ever half marathon, which was fun. Now I’ve settled into a pretty comfortable routine doing 8-10 miles every time I go out, which is usually twice a week.  

PF: It’s funny about high school wrestlers, who were the kings of my high school, those guys ran a ton. What was your relationship with running back then? 

JG: That’s kind of a loaded question because I wrestled in Pennsylvania, which is one of the hardest places to wrestle in the world. It’s like Iran and then Pennsylvania. So, I got my ass kicked pretty regularly. 

I needed to run in order to be in good shape, but also, when we were running I wasn’t getting my ass kicked on the mat. A little bit of hatred, but also a little bit of love. 

PF: Did you take cross country seriously?

JG: Not really. That was just a tuneup for wrestling season. 

PF: I would have loved to have seen you in a cross country meet. That would have been amazing. 

JG: (Laughs.) I saw your thing about running 6-minute miles. When I was a senior in high school we had to run the mile for gym class. I remember clipping off a 5:22 like, no problem. 

PF: Wouldn’t it be amazing to put our 18-year old selves in our beat up bodies and just go tear it up for a while? 

JG: I think about that all the time. The shape that I was in then, even when I was in pretty good shape 10 years ago, doesn’t compare to running eight miles before practice, and then I’m going to be on the mat for two hours. That’s mind boggling. 

PF: Maybe get in a lift afterwards. 

JG: Yeah, yeah, exactly. The warmup was 6-8 miles and then the cradio required to wrestle six minutes is insane. And then you’re doing weight training. It’s crazy.

PF: We started hanging out in the mid 2000s when we worked together at Boston magazine. You didn’t run back then, but you were always in good shape and we used to go to the gym a lot. Was there ever a part of you back then that thought about running? 

JG: I didn’t really think about it again until I was in my early to mid 30s. I always worked out and did circuit training. There would be cardio elements included. 

As a wrestler, you jump a lot of rope. I’d do shuttle runs and some sprints on the treadmill to get my heart rate up, and then immediately get off and do burpee’s. Stuff like that. But running a distance of more than 100 yards, that never occurred to me. 

PF: What spurred you to get back out there? 

JG: I just remember waking up one day and thinking, ‘Maybe I could go for a run.’ It was cold, it was winter, I was in Philadelphia. That’s prime wrestling season. Back in the day, you’d go running through the snow all the time. I just put on a bunch of gear and went for a run. 

It’s been part of my weekly workout routine ever since. I wanted to incorporate some actual cardio fitness that I hadn’t had in a long time. There’s really only one way to get that. 

The other thing I like about it is that it’s different from my regular circuit training. I do a lot of HIIT training now. Those workouts are hard, but I don’t feel like there’s a mental hurdle I have to get over. Running is a mental challenge in my brain. Going out for a run requires me to get into a certain mindset, and then it becomes a challenge, like, ‘Oh, I overcame this today.’ 

When I first started, I’d have different landmarks that I wanted to run to. I’d run from my house to the Ben Franklin Bridge, or the Art Museum or down to South Philly and across the bridge to Jersey. I accomplished all those things. 

PF: That’s cool. I really enjoyed running in Philly when I lived there, whereas I did not enjoy running through downtown Boston or Cambridge. You get to the Charles River and that’s great, but in Philly I actually enjoyed running through the city.

JG: Me too. There are so many intetesting places to run. From my house in Queen Village to the Art Museum and back is like 7 and a half miles. I remember the first time I ran that, I ran up the steps of the Art Museum and looked down the Ben Franklin Parkway, and I was like, ‘This is so cool.’ 

Even when I go home now, I look forward to getting in one of those runs. 

PF: What does running do for you?

JG: This is true of exercise in general, but specifically running, it’s really great for my mental health. I try to work out and run six times a week, so that’s four workouts, two runs, and then a rest day. On the days that I miss, I feel different. Sometimes I feel like my brain isn't functioning as well. 

Specifically on days that I run, not only did I accomplish something, but I feel good. I’m ready to work. I already did something hard, the rest of this day is going to be easy. It’s a mood alterer for me. 

PF: A lot of times when I run, I feel like I cracked the code on a story I’m trying to write.

JG: That’s a good point. I know you don't listen to music when you’re on a run, but I’ll listen to music, or more regularly a podcast, and I’ll find my brain wandering. 

More times than not when I’m working on a story, that’s when I’m workshopping in my head. The podcast may be on, but I’m really listening to the words in my head. 

PF: I developed a trick where I let my mind go completely blank for the first 2-3 miles, no expectations, no judgment. If I find myself thinking about the 87 Seattle Supersonics, that’s what I’m thinking about. And then something will flash in my head about whatever I’m working on, and that’s the thing I try to remember. 

JG: That thing where you let your mind wander, that’s one of the great things about running for me because life is stressful. You just wrote about this. That time when I’m out on a run, I don’t have to deal with all that other shit, at least for that moment. 

PF: Here’s a seamless transition. We were talking before we started recording and you told me you got COVID before the end of the year. How has that affected you? 

JG: I was lucky because I got my shots and was boosted. Colleen got her shots and was boosted. She got it first and I was like, ‘Oh, I haven't gotten it yet. My immune system is amazing!’ And then I got up one morning at 4 a.m. and was like, ‘Oh no.’   

It knocked me out for two weeks. I was just really, really tired. Some congestion. I just started working out this week. I’m definitely not where I was so I have to ramp back up again. Just getting back into circuit training, wow, these burpees are really hard. Jumping rope for 10 minutes is really hard. You gotta start somewhere. 

PF: Where do you run? 

JG: I’m so lucky. I see you running in the frigid cold and I’m in California. At night it never dips below 50, and during the day in the winter it’s pretty reliably 60-65. Plus, my backyard looks over the Pacific. 

I have three runs that I do pretty regularly. The two that run parallel to the Pacific are just staggeringly beautiful. Some elevation gains and dips, but mostly it’s flat. That’s another thing that helps me zone out. I’m running along the cliffs and the water in Palos Verdes, just how stunning it is. 

The third one, I think I’ve told you about this one. I call it the Beast. It requires three and half miles up, it’s all incline and it fucking sucks. Somebody asked me one time how it was, and I said, ‘It super sucks.’ 

But on the way down it’s awesome because all I’m looking at is the Pacific and Catalina Island. So that part is incredible. I do the hard part and get the reward on the way back. 

No snow or ice here!

PF: I want to do that one with you. I was thinking about you this morning because it was 11 degrees and I had this tempo run, but the trail was half dry and half sheets of ice. So I found this one dry patch that was a quarter mile long and I just ran back and forth five or six times to get that tempo. I was like, man, Gonz would hate this. 

JG: I used to like those cold runs when I lived in Philly because that’s another challenge you have to overcome. You know how the lungs feel differently when it’s cold? That’s something you get used to when you’re an East Coast person. I don’t necessarily miss it. 

PF: Was the half marathon the first event you trained for? 

JG: Yep. 

PF: How did that go? 

JG: I didn’t really know what I was doing. I had never run a half marathon before and I kind of just figured that I’m already running 6-8 miles at a clip. I found that I could go farther, but I also noticed how my body responds when I go past 10 miles. I don’t recover as quickly, my digestive issues increase. It’ll be hours before I feel like I can eat something. It’s just weird. 

And I don’t need that. It’s fun to run that far, but I would rather run two or three miles shorter and have breakfast like a normal human. For me, it’s just a fitness thing. What you do is madness to me. I’m just trying to have some semblance of fitness at age 44. 

When I’m reading your newsletter, it’s such an inspiration. All the things that you accomplish, that’s motivation for me. I’m not trying to run an ultra marathon or even a full marathon. But I do think about things like, I’ve never done the Broad Street run. I’d love to do that.  

PF: It’s a perfect 10 mile race. 

JG: Yeah, I want to check that off because that’s a regular run for me and I’ve run all over the city. That would be really cool. 

I find that runners, at least for me, that motivational thing of clearing a hurdle is so important. I’m not going to just sit on the couch today. It’s my run day. That mindset is integral to my personality, your personality, I would imagine a lot of people who read your newsletter. 

Our backyard looks over the ocean, so you get cyclists and motorcyclists, but you also get a ton of runners. I always think about what motivates them when they’re going by because they’re motivating me. When it’s an older guy going extremely slow, he’s as much of a motivating factor to me as some young person who’s dusting me up the hill. 

Both of them are equally motivating because we’re all out there. That’s awesome. 

PF: It's interesting because something compels all of us to get out there. No one’s forcing us. It’s not like we’re getting in shape for another sport. There’s something about being in your 30s, and now our 40s, where you don’t want to let go of that part of yourself. And you realize that you have to go get it.  

JG: I had this conversation once with J.J. Redick. He’s a maniac in terms of the workouts he does. He’s very, very, very regimented in his workouts. I asked him, ‘What are you going to do when you’re done playing?’ 

He goes, ‘I obviously won’t be this fanatical about every single thing, but I know I’m still going to stay in shape because I’m too vain not to.’ 

I think that has something to do with it too. I can’t imagine myself being out of shape, that’s something that’s not for me. 

PF: I did a piece once and I asked a guy in his 40s about triathlon training, and he said it’s the only time in his life when he gets the unvarnished truth. There’s no lies. 

JG: No lies is right. 

PF: At the same time, I struggle with that when I’m focusing on performance and the watch is telling me something I don’t want to hear. But also, I need that. You’re not what you were 15 years ago, this is what you are now, and you better embrace it. 

JG: Forget about when I was in my 20s or in high school, even 10 years ago when I was running up to the Art Museum and back and was pretty reliably at 7 minutes per mile. Those days are gone. Long gone. 

And that’s Ok. I don’t even bother timing the mile splits anymore. I’m going to go out there and run to this point in my neighborhood. That’s going to come in around the 8-10 mile range, and when it’s done, I’ve accomplished my goal.  

PF: That’s a very healthy outlook. Do you think running has cooled you out? Because you could be kind of a high strung guy back in the day. 

JG: I was, and I still can be. My friends out here will say that I tend not to care about almost everything. It’s very hard to get a rise out of me, but once you do get a rise out of me, I’m nuclear. Running helps. Age and perspective helps. 

You go for a run and you think, ‘I’m in my 40s, I have a nice life, I’m happily married.’ All that stuff goes into the bucket and you say, life’s not bad.