Running Rob Delaney

You’ve been open about your struggles with depression. Do you find that running has a mitigating impact there?
Oh, definitely. The runner’s high is real, so in the short term you feel good. In the long term, your heart is working better. Your mind is cleaner. And the mind and body are so intimately connected. If your body is in shape, you’re going to have a better shot at feeling well emotionally, so it definitely combats depression.

When do you know a runner takes himself or herself too seriously?
If they’re not having fun. If it’s interrupting your life. My kids are more important to me than running so I’m not going to palm them off on my wife for fours every weekend, and say, “Whatever, I gotta run,” and you leave her with two tiny kids without assistance. A person who damages their own relationships for running, which is a real thing I’ve seen.

You talked about writing jokes while running. How does running influence your creative process?
You want to have free flow in your head and your heart if you’re making stuff for yourself or for others to consume, if you’re doing it at the craftsman level, which is to say, whether you like to or not, it’s a really good idea to have your arteries and synapses in your mind flowing properly. So running just clears those passages so information and inspiration can flow more freely. So it’s very important to me to run.

http://www.runnersworld.com/celebrity-runners/rob-delaney