Running News Daily

Tim McGraw Used to Run 7-8 Miles Before Every Concert

Once a runner—the country artist misses his mileage, but he still walks for an hour every day. 

Country musician Tim McGraw is a former runner whose pre-show routine used to include running seven to eight miles to clear his mind before playing to crowded auditoriums. 

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada, the three-time Grammy Award-winning artist shared that he’d still be running today—before the shows on his current “Standing Room Only” tour—if he weren’t so injury prone. McGraw says he’s broken his foot three times, and had two knee surgeries and an elbow surgery to boot. He can no longer run and misses getting in his miles. Instead, he now starts each day with an hour-long walk, and he makes sure to go for a stroll before he performs onstage.

It’s not just running that’s taken a toll on McGraw’s body though. In 2011, he landed himself in a boot with two stress fractures caused by “too much spearfishing and beach volleyball,” as the singer-songwriter wrote on Instagram at the time. The same year, he broke his foot while on tour for his “Emotional Traffic” album and performed wearing a cast. 

He told CMT, “I don’t know if it happened running or in the part of the show where I jump off speakers. It could’ve happened any number of ways. It hurt for a while, and I kept running and kept working out and kept doing shows. For a couple weeks, it just kept getting worse and worse, and it finally got to where I couldn’t walk, and it was really swollen.” 

Even without running in his life, the 56-year-old continues to maintain a rigorous exercise regimen. He played sports growing up, then fell out of shape. Around 2008, he gave up alcohol, burgers, and “truck stop food,” and got excited about working out again. He even opened his own gym in Nashville in 2019 and has written a book about his late-career fitness transformation. 

It pays dividends on tour, too, with all that cavorting around with a guitar and mic. He uses his whole body to sing, and as he told Men’s Health, “having more control over those things makes my voice stronger.”

He continued, “I don't really get tired of training. There’s such a feeling of accomplishment that comes from the feeling of being my age and still being at the top of my game.”