Not seriously. I wasn’t training for anything and only occasionally did parkrun. But three or four times a week, almost without fail, I was out the door. It was just something I did.

I didn’t think of myself as a runner particularly. But I do think of myself as someone who runs. There’s a difference. My identity wasn’t built around running. I just liked to run.

I haven’t run like I used to in months.

But maybe I’m missing the point. The running will come back (if I work at it) but I can’t wish away the twins’ childhood because I want a slightly faster 5km time.

Three or four times a week has become three or four times a month. Running has become a window that has to be negotiated and planned and occasionally abandoned when something more pressing arrives, which it almost always does with twins.

I notice the absence of it more than I expected. My body feels different, both softer and slower. I’m eating the same as I always have because I’ve never had to think about it before, and now I probably should.

But more than the physical stuff, I notice it in my head. Running was the place where I processed things. Where work breakthroughs were made and where wider problems became slightly smaller.

Without it, the hum of fragmented thoughts is louder. Things sit unprocessed for longer. I feel slightly less like myself.

I think that’s probably why I’ve started writing. When you lose the thing that processes everything, you have to find another way. I called this newsletter Becoming Me because I felt I was starting a journey to understand who I was as a father. What I didn’t expect was how much of that so far has been about recognising who I already was.

The thing I was too slow to understand is that this isn’t just my problem.

Sophie ran too, before pregnancy.

We have a photo of her running in Lisbon. We didn’t know it at the time, but she was pregnant in that photo. It’s the first photo we have of her pregnant and the last of her running before the twins.

Sophie stopped running a month or two into the pregnancy. The twins are five months old now. Which means it’s been over a year since Sophie ran properly.

We went on holiday a few weeks ago and something shifted, almost by accident.

One morning we just … split the walk. Sophie took the buggy while I ran. Twenty minutes later we swapped. We both got out. The twins got their walk. Nobody missed anything.

It was so obvious I’m slightly embarrassed it took us this long. But maybe that’s unfair given how hard the first 3-4 months were. But we’re here now, and we are actively thinking about how to make space for both of us to run.

Now I run once a week at work. Well, I do when work allows. If Sophie wants to run at the weekend, I take the twins. It won’t always work, but we now know that it’s possible.

I am not who I was with running. The sooner I accept this the better. But it’s a phase, not a sentence.

And honestly, it misses the point to be too precious about it. The twins will only be this age once. Every run is time I’m not with them. Will I look back and miss a few 5km runs on my Strava? I doubt it. Will I miss seeing my daughter roll around on the floor for the first time? It hasn’t happened yet and I’m already teary thinking about missing it.

But, for now, we will get out when we can to get the benefits for the mind and body.

I went out last week for the first time in a while. I was slow for me. Somewhere in the second kilometre in Regent’s Park, with nothing in my ears and the morning doing its thing around me, I felt something settle. The hum quietened. Things felt briefly like they were in proportion.

What’s the thing you’ve lost that you’re trying to find your way back to? Hit reply. I read every one.

— Arthur