My Favorite Blog Post, "The Tail End"

The Tail End, Perspective, and the Choices That Shape Our Time

Every once in a while, a piece of writing sticks with you long after you’ve read it. For me, one of those pieces has always been The Tail End, a blog post written by Tim Urban on his site Wait But Why. It’s a simple article with a powerful message: most of the time we get with the people we love—especially our kids—happens before they turn eighteen. Urban illustrates it visually by showing how many days, seasons, holidays, and moments with our children occur before they leave home. After that, we enter “the tail end,” where the frequency of time together drops dramatically.

It is a confronting but grounding reminder of just how finite these seasons really are.

This came back to me during a conversation with a client this week. She has a few young kids at home and is juggling injury recovery, restarting her fitness routine, and the overall chaos that comes with parenting. One of her goals has been to return to running, particularly trail running while walking her dog. But she admitted—almost apologetically—that she hasn’t been doing it. She’s been walking, but not running. Because her youngest child has been asking to come along on those walks, and when they’re together, running isn’t really an option.

My response to her was simple: that time with your child is just as important as the run. Actually, in many ways, it may be more important.

Seasons Change, Even When We Don’t Notice

As someone who has already lived through the “0–18 window” with my own kids, the message from The Tail End hits harder each year. My older son is home from college for the holidays. My younger son is a high school senior—independent, busy, and driving himself everywhere. The days of the four of us in one room, watching a show together or piling on the couch with the dog, have become rare.

But this week, with both boys home, our family room has looked a lot like it did a decade ago. All four of us, plus the dog, hanging out at night. Watching a show. Sharing a meal. Laughing about something completely non-essential. And I’ve realized how much I’ve missed it.

These moments pass quickly. You don’t realize you’re experiencing a “last” until long after it’s gone. The last regular family dinner. The last bedtime routine. The last time they reach for your hand without thinking.

The time my client is spending walking with her child is part of that fleeting window. That’s not lost progress—it’s intentional presence.

Choosing What Matters While Still Moving Forward

At Whole Health Solutions and Sports Performance, we talk a lot about priorities, long-term health, and building routines that actually fit real life. Running is important. Strength training is important. Recovery, physical therapy, and whole-body health—they all matter.

But they exist within the context of your life, not outside of it.

When a client tells me they “failed” because their child joined them for a walk and interrupted the plan, that’s not failure. That’s a moment of clarity. It’s a reminder that we’re always balancing training goals with the things that make life meaningful.

This doesn’t mean giving up on the goal. It means adjusting the plan.

We can always restructure a running program. We can carve out a later workout or shift strength training to another day. We can build fitness around family, work, and responsibilities.

But we can’t rewind time.

Fitness Is a Tool, Not a Trade-Off

The Tail End reminds us that the point of being strong, healthy, and capable is to live a full life—to feel good enough to enjoy moments exactly like the ones my client was worried about “interrupting” her training.

She was doing the very thing we hope our clients can do: move well, be present, participate in the things that matter, and create memories that sit squarely in the center of those precious first eighteen years.

If you’re running a little less because your child wants to join you, or you’re taking an extra walk instead of hitting your exact planned pace, that doesn’t mean you’re off track. That means you’re choosing well.

A Season Worth Protecting

As Urban writes in The Tail End, we often assume we have endless years of time with the people we love. But the math tells a different story. Most of that time happens early, and everything after is bonus time—time that should be protected, appreciated, and fully lived.

This season of parenting is short. And whether it’s Thanksgiving week or the middle of June, the message stays the same: be intentional with the time you have.

Your fitness goals, your recovery, and your health journey don’t suffer when you choose meaningful moments. They grow because of them. They become sustainable because they align with the life you’re actually living.

And in the end, that alignment—not perfection—is what leads to long-term success in strength training, injury recovery, and whole-body health.