Sprint all the time, sing occasionally: Why Harry Styles spent his downtime running marathons

While we were all waiting for Harry Styles to announce his new album, he was photographed in various cities doing unexpected things: watching the new pope be announced in Rome, hanging out with Zoë Kravitz in New York City and, perhaps most surprisingly, running marathons in Berlin and Tokyo. In a recent interview, Harry explains how he ended up in those races, which he finished in 2:59:13 and 3:24:07, respectively.

Speaking to the Times of London, Harry says that since he was age 16, he'd always had "some sort of schedule or structure to my life." But during the downtime after his Love On Tour wrapped, he suddenly had time on his hands.

"Having a constant schedule is not natural, but doing nothing isn’t natural either," he says. "So I wanted to do something where I could achieve something that would fulfill me and give me some sense of structure, but in a way that wasn’t work."

Harry says he used to run when he was in his early 20s and had wanted to do a marathon during that time. However, he admits, "I didn’t stretch well enough and didn’t look after my body, so I ended up not doing it."

But as he approached his 30th birthday, Harry says he realized that if he waited any longer, it would only get harder for him to start running again.

"I knew I could approach it in a better way now," he notes. "So it was healthy for me to have something as an outlet that gave me some structure in a moment where I was spending a lot of time by myself."

"It showed me that I could do difficult things by myself. Running wasn’t about being perfect, or the best, and it has been really rewarding."