‘Snowpiercer’ actor finds joy in running

When the coronavirus pandemic started and gyms around the world closed, Aleks Paunovic searched for a new way to stay active and fit, just like everyone else did. He settled on running, which he often incorporated into his workouts at the gym, although never truly loved. The Canadian actor — who has a long resume of roles, most recently starring in television shows like Snowpiercer and Van Helsing — admits that his six-foot-five, 260-pound build can make it tough to run, but he has made it work, focusing more on short distances and hill sprints rather than longer endurance workouts. Paunovic won’t be running a marathon any time soon, but that doesn’t mean he won’t call himself a runner. 

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Early years in sport

Before Paunovic found acting, he was a boxer, and a pretty good one, too. He won provincial titles in B.C., Saskatchewan and Alberta, and in 1999, he competed at a pre-Pan Am Games competition. As a boxer, running was always an important aspect of his training.

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“When I was younger, it was a big part of my conditioning,” he says. “I’d go for light jogs and keep my heart rate at a certain level, which is where you wanna keep your heart rate between punches in a fight.” After retiring from elite boxing, Paunovic left running behind as well. “Running with my big frame is hard on my body,” he says. “Especially if I’m trying to get long distance runs in.” When he found his way back to running, he didn’t force himself to go for 5K runs or 40-minute jogs. Instead, he stuck with what his body could take, and he kept his workouts much shorter. 

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Short and sweet

Paunovic says he does three to four sprint workouts per week, either at a park or on a couple of hills near his Vancouver home. “I’ve loved it, because when COVID hit, I didn’t have the option to go to the gym,” he says. “I just went outside and enjoyed nature. It’s been great rediscovering the sprints again, because I’m very much a treadmill guy.” He says he used to do a lot of flat and inclined sprints on the treadmill at the gym, but running outside has a different feel to it. 

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“Running is the most primitive form of exercise,” he says. “Back in the days of cavemen, they could do this, so it’s so hilarious that you can overlook something like it. Then when everything’s taken away, it’s all that’s left.” In the last month, his gym has reopened and he’s back to taking boxing classes, but that hasn’t stopped him from keeping up with his running. 

As one might guess, as a former boxing champion and an actor who is always on the hunt for new roles, Paunovic is a competitive person. And while he says he loves working out with other people, he finds that his best competition is himself. 

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“It’s motivating to me to have others around, but there’s something about pushing yourself when you’re by yourself,” he says. Some days he’ll run 40-second sprints at the park by his house, and he keeps track of how far he gets with every repetition, trying to beat his last effort. On the days when he hits the hills, he sees if he can match the same number of times running up as he did on his last outing. “I’m definitely competitive with myself.” 

Finding what works for you 

Paunovic took several years off from boxing after he retired from the sport, but when he got back into it, he realized that he needed some form of running to keep his cardio up. Going long distances would take too much of a toll on his body, so he does what he can and keeps his runs shorter but at a high level of intensity. 

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Not everyone is a six-foot-five, 260-pound former heavyweight boxer like Paunovic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from his experience in running. A lot of people enter the sport and think that they have to run a marathon because that’s the event everyone talks about doing. But running is an individual sport, and it can lead to individual pursuits. If you want to run a marathon or an ultra, that’s a great goal, but so is running a 10K, a 5K or a 10×40-second sprint workout three to four times a week. There’s no set or required distance that you have to go in order to enjoy running or to call yourself a runner. You just have to think like Paunovic and find joy in running whatever distance works best for you.