I have focused a large share of my writing on this website on running, and for good reason. It has been my defining hobby for the last few years and above and beyond the element of my free time that I prioritize the most. I could ramble on for pages and pages about the impact that running has had on my life since I’ve picked up the habit.
This post is about the downside to my running. After all, no matter how much positivity I can take from running, at the end of the day I still treat it, in many ways, like a crutch. Running is easy for me. That hasn’t always been clear, but recently it has been a thought I’ve had nagging at the back of my mind. It’s easy. When I first started running, I was surprised by two things: how quickly I found myself ramping up the distance and how disciplined I was about sticking to a plan. My first marathon had no real speed bumps, and I essentially finished exactly as I expected. In my last real race, a 50-mile ultra in northern Virginia, everything went largely the same. I stuck to a training plan (a lot of 20 mile Saturdays), was disciplined about pacing myself, and finished more or less exactly how I expected I would.
Saying that running is easy is very different than saying that running well is easy. Sure, I had relatively little trouble running a 3:38 marathon, but that is what my lean, bony body and abnormally low heart rate were most likely built to do. What about sub-3:00? What about a sub-5:00 minute mile, or winning a 10K? How about I up the stakes a little bit? I have been toying with this idea for a while, but have avoided prioritizing it at all costs. Speed workouts, which are often included in training plans, make my skin crawl. I’m afraid I won’t be able to motivate myself on my own, or that I’ll feel sluggish and slow, so I choose plans without them. I don’t let the challenge be laid in front of me.
Yesterday, on one of the rare occasions when I lift weights, my friend Matt put it very bluntly. “This is the hard stuff for you – lifting. Running is easy. Maybe you just do all the stuff that comes easily for you.” I didn’t have to chew on that lesson for too long, because the same notion has been floating around my head for the last six months or so. There are many things I want to accomplish this year (read my 2019 Reflection & 2020 Goals post) but I let running take a front seat to all of them. If it were the case that running was the most important thing in my life, then fine. But it’s not. I am already established as a runner. I can get what I want out of the sport – the long weekend runs, occasional long races or marathons. I don’t need to continue to train so often, or to keep signing up for longer and longer races. If anything, my continuing to run so frequently should be pushing me towards getting faster (i.e. challenging myself), but it’s not. So I’m left to wonder what I’m leaving on the table by expending all of my time, effort and discipline (it’s a finite resource) on something that might not truly require it.
One very clear goal of mine is to write. I have a pretty good idea how my discipline works, and that means that I have five weekday and two weekend mornings available to dedicate towards something that matters to me. Anything I leave for after work, or for Saturday and Sunday afternoons, is not a priority. It doesn’t mean that it won’t happen on occasion, but if it’s not in the morning then it’s a second-class priority. Currently, I choose running 95 percent of the time, and maybe that works well for me. I can’t help but think, though, about whether I choose to run in the morning because it’s the most optimal choice for me or whether I choose it because it lets me avoid writing. Or avoid anything else I might want to get serious about, lifting being another one of them.
Disciplined actions in pursuit of a challenging goal are a funny thing. It became apparent for me a few years into true adulthood that it isn’t always enough to just do something regularly. At a certain point, if I were running four miles every morning, or cooking the exact same dinner every night, I wouldn’t be learning anything, or pushing my boundaries in any way. I’m starting to feel as though that is sort of where I am getting with running, as though I’ve gotten comfortable doing something that used to feel like a bit more of a challenge, and now I either need to rethink the way that I challenge myself or start to get complacent.
To me it comes down most to the idea of giving myself an out. A year or so ago I was talking to my Dad, telling him how I thought I wanted to write more, do something different in my career – the typical millennial complaints – and he pushed me to think about why I couldn’t do both. “Do you think maybe you keep yourself so busy, spread out across so many different hobbies, so that you won’t ever truly fail at any single one?” That was another question that my subconscious had been asking me for some time.
I don’t know that this train of thought leaves me in a different place than I was before. I am still signed up for another 50-mile ultra this spring, and then my first 100-miler in the fall. I’m extremely excited for both, and would never pretend as though finishing either is a sure thing. That said, they are both comfortable risks. I’ve already experienced exhaustion and pain while running. Even if the 100 is twice as painful as the 50, it won’t be alien to me. What I still haven’t experienced, after all the years of thinking, speaking and occasionally writing about it, is routinely putting pen to paper and writing with regularity and discipline. I have not consistently worked on building muscle, instead of endurance. I haven’t spent the time to improve upon my cooking in a deliberate way. I haven’t done so many things that I tell myself I prioritize.
Maybe really where I am getting stuck is the idea that years could go by and all I will have accomplished is to finish a few more races that I knew I would finish. Life is very short. The more I talk to my parents, and grandfather, and other adults, the more weight I’m beginning to place on my actions now, today, as a 26 year old. They matter. It’s too easy to look back and realize that something you’ve wanted to do for so long, have been telling yourself you can do, is no longer possible, or realistic.
My grandfather is 88 years old and just published his first novel (Revenge Served Cold). I have no idea whether that has been a dream of his for a long time, or whether it was just something he chose to do to fill his days, but that is clear, concrete evidence that writing a 300 page book is not an insurmountable task. It can be broken down into bite-sized pieces, chewed and swallowed. I can write a plan, 500 words a day, maybe varied word counts each day, and then track it on a wall calendar like my runs. I can leave my laptop set up on the table so that it’s the first thing I look at in the morning. I can do a lot of things I’m not doing right now and I know I should be.
It all really does come down to fear of failure. I am so used to being the guy who is disciplined about running, and I’m afraid to become the guy who is a mess about writing. Whose girlfriend comes home to find out he hasn’t written a single word. Whose cursor blinks back at him, ashamed. Whose words, when written, don’t make sense, or don’t sound natural.
The harsh reality for myself is that most of what I want to do in life requires me to overcome fear, face failure, and prioritize the things that are truly important in that particular moment. If I want to build a successful real estate portfolio I have to actually put myself out there and network with other investors, agents and contractors. I need to ask for help and to articulate my value. If I want to truly excel at work I need to shore up my weaknesses and not simply coast by on my strengths. If I want to be a writer then I have to write and distinguish between bad writing and failure.
Here is the final catch. This very type of writing, the personal, introspective essay, spewed out onto the page in one or two sittings, is my writing crutch. It comes easily to me. So even in writing, it feels like I am taking the easy way out.