While taking a class from Peloton powerhouse Tunde Oyeneyin, it would be easy to assume she’s alway been an athlete—but that isn’t the case. Growing up, Oyeneyin was picked on and made fun of for her weight. She would try out for every sport but never ended up making the cut.
Now, she works for Peloton, the leading connected fitness platform in the world, is a Nike athlete, and is also a Team Abbott running ambassador. “To try out for every single sport to then lead people through sport and lead people through movement, it’s just wild to me,” she tells Well+Good.
In her latest endeavor, Oyeneyin decided to try something she’d never done before: She joined up with Team Abbott to run the 2024 Chicago Marathon. While Oyeneyin is very comfortable in the saddle of a spin bike, she didn’t feel so confident running. In fact, she wrote herself off as someone who wasn’t a runner, simply because she didn’t like running. “I don’t know that I’d say I enjoy it now, but I do like how I feel after,” she says.
The importance of getting out of your comfort zone
Not only did Oyeneyin take on the challenge of running a marathon, but she dove into the waters to give swimming a try recently, too. What is it that inspires and motivates her to try new and scary things?
“The older and older I get, I realize I enjoy pushing myself. I enjoy testing the limits. I’m someone who doesn’t like feeling complacent—I like when things aren’t the same. So both of these physical activities have pushed me out of a space where I feel comfortable. I’m used to pushing my body on a daily basis, but running is not my modality and neither is swimming.”
“The older and older I get, I realize I enjoy pushing myself. I enjoy testing the limits.” —Tunde Oyeneyin, Peloton instructor
Outside of her comfort zone, whether it’s something physical or not, is where she finds her growth. Whether it’s meeting new and interesting people or learning things about herself she didn’t know, there is a takeaway. “There’s always a win at the end, she says. “For me, finishing and completing anything and trying is the win, but there’s always something to be gained outside of it that I couldn’t have expected.”
In training for and running the Chicago Marathon, Oyeneyin learned many things, one being there really isn’t anything she can’t do or anything she wouldn’t be willing to explore. She credits this to being curious—when you dare to be curious, there is a whole world of opportunity waiting ahead, she says. “The beauty of uncertainty is infinite possibility. You won’t know what lies ahead until you get in the car and start moving. What if you dared to be curious enough to try? What wins could you have waiting for you on the other side of that?”
Oyeneyin explains that for her, running is meditation and healing. “It will break you in half, but somehow it lifts you and heals you, and glues you right back together.” She wants more people to experience the feeling of being broken and built in the same minute and wants more people to venture out of their comfort zone.
Running the Chicago Marathon
She also found that running is a more inclusive sport than she initially thought. “I learned that a runner doesn’t look one way. To train and to have these out-of-body moments where I physically saw myself doing the thing I said I couldn’t do or wouldn’t do, I realized there’s no one way that a runner looks,” she says.
Running with Team Abbott helped to dispel her thoughts about runners as well. Team Abbott was created by the global healthcare company, Abbott, and is a team of runners from around the globe who are using their running journeys to inspire others and showcase that with the right support and determination, every finish line is within reach. “I wanted to partner with Team Abbott this year because I wanted people to know that marathon running doesn’t come in any one particular package. I wanted to align myself with a group that had a similar mission of showing people that they can,” she says.
Oyeneyin asked a friend for advice before running the marathon, and he told her “Run your own race.” She found that to be helpful as she took on Chicago. “When you’re out there, there are people twice your age running right past you, and you start to get in this head space of ‘Why can’t I? But you don’t know that person’s story. It’s a very individual sport.”
“Now that I’ve done this, there’s nothing I can’t do. Dare to be curious enough to try.” —Tunde Oyeneyin, Peloton instructor
Something that helped her while training was to remember there will be highs and lows. When there are bad days, you have to let them go, and when there are good days, you have to acknowledge them, have gratitude for them and let those go, too. If you compare yourself, you start wondering what you did wrong if one day doesn’t feel as good as another.
Oyeneyin had days where she would get up and run three miles, and those three miles felt daunting, heavy, horrible, slow, and breathless. Then there were days when she would wake up, run 10 miles, and yearn for more.
“Had I allowed the feeling of those three miles I’d run the day before the carry into the day I had ahead, I would not have enjoyed the 10 miles,” she says. “Running really is a mile-to-mile sport. You can only think about the mile that you’re in because when you think about the whole sum of work, it feels too daunting. When you compare one mile to the mile that’s coming or the mile that’s behind, you’re doing yourself a disservice.”
Now that she’s running and swimming along with her biking, is a triathlon next? It’s not off the table, she says. “Now that I’ve done this, there’s nothing I can’t do. But I don’t know if that belief would have come or if I would have been curious enough to ask myself that if I hadn’t begun this journey here first. So again, dare to be curious enough to try.”
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