What Running Taught Me About Living Abroad

At 3am on Sunday morning, I was standing on a street in Saigon, right in front of the Independence Palace, waiting to run a half marathon.

The city was barely awake, but not quiet. Motorbikes still hummed past, streetlights reflected off the roads, and the park was already full of people stretching, walking, warming up.

As I stood there, slightly delirious from the early start and adrenaline, I kept thinking about how running has become one of the few things that hasn’t changed since I moved here.

Running as a Constant

I moved to Vietnam alone. New country, new routine, new everything. And yet, from the first few weeks, one thing stayed the same, I put my trainers on and went out for a run.

Having that routine made Saigon feel familiar very quickly. It gave my days some structure before anything else had settled. Same shoes, same habit, same sense of purpose, even when everything around me was still new. It helped me build a routine fast, and with that came a feeling of stability that made the city start to feel like home sooner than I expected.

I don’t have a psychology background, but I’m clearly still in uni mode, where every point feels like it needs backing up. So, in true academic fashion, I did a bit of digging to see if there was actually research behind this idea.

I came across a paper published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society that examined routines and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers found that people who maintained consistent daily routines during periods of disruption and uncertainty showed higher levels of resilience and better emotional regulation. It’s not saying routines remove stress, but it does support the idea that having something familiar and repeatable can help your brain stay steady when everything else is changing.

That tracked almost exactly with my experience. Running didn’t make the move easy. It just stopped it from feeling unmanageable.

Learning to Sit With Discomfort

When I’m not feeling great, when my head feels noisy, or when I need to let off some steam, I know I can always go for a run. Long-distance running forces you to stay with discomfort rather than escape it. You don’t get instant relief. You earn it. And over time, that builds a kind of resilience you don’t really notice until you need it.

I hit the wall during the half marathon at around 18km. Properly hit it. I slowed to a walk, my legs felt heavy, and all I could think was, why do I do this to myself? Stopping felt very tempting in that moment.

That feeling was familiar.

I remember my first move abroad, to Réunion Island during my undergrad. I arrived straight off a long flight and ended up stranded on campus at lunchtime, no accommodation, no data, no idea what was happening. I sat there for hours before someone finally handed me the keys to my flat. When I got inside, I burst into tears. As soon as I had WiFi, I looked up flights home (I didn’t book one. And it ended up being one of the best times of my life).

Vietnam had its own version of that feeling. Not immediately, but later, visa stress, admin, starting a new job. There was a moment in the supermarket after a full day of running between police offices, completely drained, thinking, who am I kidding? This life is too hard. Why don’t I just go home?

But just like in a race, I knew I could quit. And that’s exactly why I didn’t.

I’ve learned through running that quitting early doesn’t bring relief, it just brings regret. I would’ve regretted not finishing that race, just like I would’ve regretted walking away from living here before giving it a proper chance. So you slow down, you reset, and eventually you start moving forward again.

Crossing a finish line never feels as good as you imagine while you’re suffering. It feels better. The same way getting my resident card in my hands did. The stress lifted instantly. I was just relieved and very glad I hadn’t given up when it got uncomfortable.

Positive Self Talk

When I first started running (and sometimes still now), my internal monologue was brutal.
This hurts. I’m terrible at this.

Not hitting a certain time used to feel like failure. Proof that I’d misjudged my ability, my fitness, even my decision to sign up in the first place.

Now, when it starts to hurt, I try to flip the narrative. What a privilege it is to feel like this. To have a body that can carry me this far. To be healthy enough to run these distances at all, let alone in a country I chose to move to. I don’t know if I’ll always be able to do this, so I try to notice it while I can.

That mindset gets tested constantly here. Vietnam has a lot of legal requirements for expats, and they change fast. New rules, new paperwork, new forms that didn’t exist last month. Right now, like a lot of expats, I’ve got to spend an entire day at the tax office. On paper it’s a two-minute job. In reality, it’s queues, stamps, photocopies, and waiting around for hours.

It’s boring. I still complain.

But I’ve noticed I handle it differently now. I remind myself that this isn’t happening to me, it’s happening because I chose to live here. What a privilege it is to even be dealing with this. To be able to leave England because I felt like it. To have the option of building a life somewhere else.

I used to be a chronic pessimist. Running didn’t turn me into an optimist overnight, but it taught me how to talk to myself in moments when it would be very easy to spiral. And that’s been one of the most useful skills I’ve taken with me out here.

Doing it Alone

Running is also lonely in a very specific way.

I felt this most during the marathon I ran last year in Leeds. Friends and family were tracking me, sending messages that Siri read out through my AirPods as I ran. At exactly the right moments, around the 30km mark, when everything started to hurt properly, I had phone calls from my parents and friends cheering me on, and it gave me a real boost. It mattered more than I expected.

But those moments were brief.

For most of the race, it was still just me. You pass the cheering, you hear your name, and then you’re alone again with your thoughts and your body, deciding whether you keep going or slow down.

Living abroad is similar. Your friends and family are there for you, encouraging you, supporting you, but they’re not running the race for you. You still have to deal with the hard parts yourself. The bureaucracy, the homesickness, the days where you question why you chose this.

Running helped me get comfortable with that. You learn that support can exist without someone stepping in to fix things for you. You can appreciate the encouragement without expecting anyone else to carry you through the hard parts.

And once you understand that, both running and living abroad feel more manageable. You stop waiting for someone to make it easier, and you just keep going.

The Final Leg

By the time I crossed the finish line, the sun was coming up.

The city was loud again. I was exhausted, sweaty, and slightly emotional, the usual post-race state. But mostly, I felt relieved. Not because it was over, but because I hadn’t quit.

There have been moments living here where I’ve hit the wall. Times when everything felt harder than it should have, when stopping would’ve been the easier option.

Running has taught me how to be alone without feeling lonely. How to sit with discomfort without immediately trying to escape it. How to trust that progress doesn’t always feel good while it’s happening.

I’m not saying everyone should go out and start running. Some people love it, some people hate it, and that’s fine. But having something consistent, something you enjoy and can come back to, matters more than we probably admit.

I think we’ve forgotten the value of hobbies. Not side hustles. Not productivity tools. Just something steady that grounds you when everything else feels new or uncertain.

Crossing that finish line at 5am was proof that sticking it out usually is worth it.

With love from Saigon,

Anaïs