Running, Writing, and Crazy Talk

Earlier this month one of my brothers came for a visit and said the craziest thing. “Let’s go for a run.” The fact he was looking at me when he said it made it even crazier. Me? Run? 

“I haven’t run in over eight years,” I quickly reminded him. “There’s no way I can keep up with you.”

“We’ll go slow. You’ll be fine,” he said.

“How can I be fine if I’m dead?”

“Tomorrow morning. Let’s do it.”

“If by do it, you mean relax and drink coffee, then sure, you’re on.”

“Come on. You used to run all the time.”

“Used to being the key phrase. Listen to me, I don’t run anymore. It’s not happening. No way, no how. Forget it.”

The next morning we set out for a run. (The problem with having older brothers is they can talk you into anything.) And I must say, the experience turned out to be every bit as painful as I imagined it would be. The park I could circle twice at a steady pace years ago, I barely staggered around once that morning. Which led me to the obvious conclusion. 

“I must have had an undiagnosed case of Covid earlier on,” I gasped. “It’s clearly affected my lung capacity. Probably my heart. Definitely my legs. It’s hopeless.”

My brother offered a different diagnosis. “You’ve lost all your mental fortitude as a runner.” But thankfully he offered some hope. “If you stuck with it, made sure to get out at least twice a week at the bare minimum and slowly built up, I bet you’d notice a difference within a few months.”

At first I balked. A few months? If I’m going to put myself through torture I want to notice a big difference now. Today. At the very least tomorrow. Who has the patience to stick out an endeavor that might require months before seeing results?

Then later I sat down for another round of revisions on the 80,000 word novel I’ve been working on since early last year and realized, oh wait. I do. If writing isn’t an endeavor of extreme patience and mental fortitude, I don’t know what is. Shoot. Maybe I do have what it takes to get back into running. 

So for the past few weeks, I’ve been lacing up my running shoes and slowly plodding over the pavement that circles the park. The doubts that plagued me when I first started writing plague me now as I run.

Why are you doing this? You don’t actually think this will last, do you? You know this is just a passing fad. Eventually you’re going to get tired of it and quit. Wouldn’t you rather relax and drink coffee? Think of all the Hallmark movies you could be watching right now. 

All valid points. And it’s been a temptation, both in writing and now running, to say, “You know what? You’re right. I’m probably not going to see this through to the finish. Eventually life will get in the way. Things will get busy. I’ll get distracted. And I’ll quit. Why bother continuing?”

But then, wouldn’t you know, at just the right moments my husband has said the craziest things. A few years ago, it was “You should buy a laptop computer.” Earlier this week, “You should buy some good running shoes.”

For those of you who don’t know my husband, he’s not the type of man to spend money willy-nilly. For him to make those sort of suggestions can only mean one thing. He believes I won’t quit. 

And for now, as long as I take it one day at a time, I believe he’s right.