Category: Running

I run a lot, and sometimes I write about it. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Things don’t always have to mean something!

No Geminids For You

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I ran this morning, and it was gorgeous.

But it bloody well shouldn’t have been. It’s the middle of December, for goodness’ sake. When I go out for a 5 AM run, I should be reaching for the tights (yes, male runners can wear tights, shut up), gloves and hat, not for the sleeveless tee and lightweight shorts. The temperature was in the mid 60s with just a hint of rain in the air; in fact, I got spritzed by a delightful little sprinkle here and there throughout the jaunt.

Ideal running weather, in other words. Winter runs shouldn’t be so gorgeous. You run through the winter so that you can lament the balmy, breezy runs of the fall. You run through the winter to build up your stamina so that when spring rolls around you can pull off the chocks and blow your old records away. You run through the winter so that you can feel a measure of thankfulness for the runs you endured in the ninety-degree days and eighty-degree nights of summer.

You run in the winter, in other words, to suffer, goldfinger it, not to breezily traipse through a leisurely three miles and return home, having hardly broken a sweat.

I’d say that the weather is all out of whack, but, given as I live just outside Atlanta, it would seem that the weather is functioning exactly as intended. Next week we’ll no doubt see ice on our front lawns, to be followed by another record-breaking heatwave. January will probably start off with a rain of toads and a plague of locusts before simmering down to a balmy forty degree average or so.

But when I said the weather this morning was gorgeous, that was a lie. I was hoping for a clear sky. Why? Well…

A photographer looks at the sky at night to see the annual Geminid meteor shower on the Elva Hill, in Maira Valley, near Cuneo, northern Italy on December 12, 2015.

It seems to be a function of the lovely and totally predictable and well-behaved Atlanta weather that I be deprived of witnessing any astronomical points of interest this year. A few months ago, the Supermoon was in town, and I missed it thanks to a blanket of unproductive cloud cover. About a season earlier, there was a meteor shower that I missed for the same reason. This week, the Geminid meteor shower is in full display… apparently. Of course, I wouldn’t know, because once again, there’s a sheet of clouds lying low over the entire area keeping me from seeing a damn thing.

With that luck firmly in place, during the total solar eclipse in 2017, here in Atlanta, we’ll miss it thanks to a patch of cloud that passes over right around noon.

It’ll probably still be a gorgeous day for a run.

Look, a Running Post!

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There are run days, and then there are good run days, and then further still, there are great run days.

I’m the hippy-dippy type that thinks that any run is a good one; any time you can break your inertia, lace up, and take to the pavement for a jaunt, an excursion, or a quick up-and-down the block, is better than a day when you can’t. Perhaps in keeping with my groundlessly optimistic viewpoint, weather has little to do with whether a run is good or great or simply a run: rain doesn’t bother me, cold doesn’t bother me, hell, I’ve even run in the snow (which northerners would scoff at as no big deal, but here in Atlanta, that’s a delightful treat akin to finding five dollars when you’re out for a run — which I’ve also done). Heat… well, we can talk about the miserable heat-and-humidity runs of the South another time, those provide a special misery all their own.

So even though weather can’t dampen my spirits about a run, exceptional weather can sometimes make a run exceptional. The temperatures are dipping pleasantly here this week (lows in the 40s), which benefits the runner tremendously. Skies have been clear, too, with hardly any humidity. What that added up to at 5 AM was a cool three-and-a-half miles in just over a half hour, under a blanket of stars that you don’t see too often ’round these parts.

Living in the suburbs has its advantages, sure, but I do long sometimes for the wide open spaces where the night sky presents you with a few thousand stars, rather than a few dozens.

But even the favorable gleam of light from the infinite doesn’t account for the uplift I’m feeling. To be honest, I should be feeling like twice-run-over garbage; every human in my house has been fighting flu-like symptoms for the better part of a month, and the condition recently surged to give my wife and I both a couple of sleepless nights. Sprout #2, in particular, has handled the settling plague with all the grace of a toddler getting knocked over by a tire swing.

So why did today’s run feel so good?

Maybe today, the stars aligned in a way that was beneficial for my mind and spirit.

Maybe it’s the draft I just finished — the one that’s been on my back like an angry monkey for the past 8 months.

Maybe it was the gallon of snot and phlegm my lungs expelled during the run.

Maybe the construction on the roads in the area has lined my lungs and brain with asphalt particulate and I’m hallucinating the good vibes.

Or maybe I just really needed the run.

One way or another, this morning’s miles were great miles. And it’s a second day with no looming deadlines, projects, or even, really, thoughts about writing.

So here I am. Not thinking about writing.

And … writing about it.

Saving the World, One Box Turtle at a Time

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Rain swept in this morning like unkempt cousins from out of state staying at your place for the weekend. A real gullywasher, filling creeks and overflowing gutters and battering the streets like a particularly nasty Evander Holyfield combination.

And it was a run day.

I’m past the point of rationality with my runs: I love running so much that not only is rain not a deterrent; in the right season it’s actually an incentive. Short of active lightning or sub-freezing temperatures, I’m more than happy to lace up in the wind and rain and take a beating from the elements. Makes me feel alive.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one lunatic enough to be out in the squall, though.

I was running my regular route around the mall, picking my path among the parking spaces out back of the J.C. Penney’s, when I ran into a four-legged friend. A little box turtle, about the size of a a half-cantaloupe, parked in the middle of the second clockwise lane with his tiny little neck craning skyward as if drinking in the bounty of the heavens. In a prime run-me-over location.

Luckily, it was three hours before the mall opens for business, so I stumbled upon him first. Knowing that the average motorist around our mall pays about as much attention to his surroundings as a ravenous dog on a bone pays to the color of the wallpaper, it was obvious that I had to get the little monster out of there. So I padded over to his little orange shell and scooped him up — he withdrew head, legs, and tail with a tiny, perturbed hiss; I’m sure he thought he was about to become lunch for some gigantic predator — and spirited him away across the parking lot toward the woods from whence he must have come. (I would have taken a picture, naturally, but seeing as the rain was falling like Donald Trump’s credibility with women, I didn’t bring the phone with me.)

Plopping him down in the mud just on the other side of the chink in the fence, I resumed my run — sorry, my rain-frolic — and put in a few more laps around our local consumer mecca. On the next pass, he was still where I had left him. Obviously, he was a bit shell shocked (I am SOOO sorry, I regret it instantly). But by the time I circled back again, he was gone, leaving only a tiny mud puddle in his wake.

I’m not the kind of guy to call something like this anything more than a happy coincidence. Still, it felt good to know that I probably saved the little guy’s life. But one has to wonder: what the hell was he doing in the middle of the parking lot anyway? Was he turning his back on his small-town turtle existence and trying to make a go of it in the city? Was he tired of it all and looking for a one-way ticket to turtle heaven (and I ruined it)? Or maybe he was looking for me, trying to send me (perhaps through turtle telepathy) the message that me running was my best way of saving the world, one adorable little box turtle at a time?

Yeah, probably just a coincidence.

Still: a good run.

Running and Writing: Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together!

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It’s been a long time since I had a running post, and I wondered if I was done with them. After all, this is primarily a blog about the writing of novels and the tribulations of a writer of novels learning that he doesn’t actually know very much about the writing of novels. What does running have to do with that?

Well, a lot, actually.

I take a bit of a Dirk Gently approach to life, always trying to keep in mind the interconnectedness of all things. A hummingbird flaps its wings in Taiwan and creates a hurricane in Florida, or an angry old man sends back soup at a deli and the next thing you know, skinny jeans are going out of style and cats are scooping their own poop.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about writing, it’s that it’s hard. Really hard. I’ve called it a Sisyphean effort before, and that’s not hyperbole: take your eye off the work and it can backslide on you, rolling your project and your will to work on it all the way back down to the bottom of the hill you spent five months climbing. And that’s when the wind is at your back, when things are going your way and you feel really truly in touch with what you’re writing.

But those are the rare days.

A lot of writing (the biggest part of writing, of late) is writing when your heart isn’t in it, when you fear the work is crap, that you’re crap, that every idea you’ve ever had or will ever have is crap, and that the paper that might have been used printing out your manuscript would be better used as paper that’s actually designed for cleaning up crap. Authorial self-doubt, the fear of rejection, an inability to find the time to focus or the right circumstances to concentrate… all these can add up to make the prospect of writing as daunting as an ant deciding it wants to cut a tunnel through the Rocky Mountains. On those days, you really have to be clearheaded, you have to train your mind to block out all that negativity and self-sabotage.

Which is where the running comes in. Say what you will about the dubious benefits of prolonged cardio exercise or how bad it is for your knees (or better yet, don’t, because I will just laugh at you), but any activity that gets the blood flowing to your body proper is by its very nature going to get the blood flowing to your brain. All that fresh, hot, oxygen-laced, endorphin-riddled blood hitting the brain is like a cool breeze in the middle of a Georgia July, like stepping into a heated storefront after being out in a New York winter, like the first pop in a fresh roll of bubble wrap. It gets you focused, it gets you clear-headed, it gets you calm.

Add to that, of course, the fact that with running in particular, it’s just you and the road (or trail or track or whatever) and the low, rhythmic shuffling of your feet. If zen masters advocate focusing on the simple infinity of the “om”, then there’s a wealth of universal truth to be found in the relentless slap slap slap of your feet on the pavement. There is no better way to get some alone time with your thoughts than to lace up your sneakers and go out for a few meditative miles.

If you’re a regular reader, you might know that I’ve been struggling with a foot injury for the last year and a half that’s made it difficult for me to fully enjoy my runs. It’s been impossible for me to cover long distances or to push my pace much above a brisk jog without setting myself back something horrible. But I’m muscling through, perhaps idiotically so (especially if you ask my wife) because of one thing:

I write better on the days when I exercise than on days when I don’t. I write better on days that I run than on days when I “work out”. I’m clearer, more at peace, less stressed, less consumed with doubt. If I can start the day with that one accomplishment under my belt, it makes any other goal — from writing a few hundred words to grading a stack of horrible essays — seem that much closer to my grasping hands.

Problem is, there’s only so much you can say about running, right? I mean, sure, every run is different: the melodies of the birdsong, the low lullaby of the cars rumbling past, the poemic abuse from passing motorists weaves itself into a unique symphony every time you step out. But by the same token, of course, every run is pretty much the same: laces on, one foot in the other, tromp stomp tromp stomp, have a shower, go on with your day.

So on the one hand, I hesitate to write too much about running, because I fear it gets monotonous. Then again, I wonder if I don’t beat the writing about writing horse to death, as I fear I may have done of late.

Nevertheless, running, as I said before, is a part of my process. Which means it belongs here.

Oh, and: I went for a run yesterday. It was good. Probably go for one tomorrow. I think that one will be good, too.

Image from Avicii’s Levels music video.

Comparison Shopping (or, Dirty Writer Secrets)

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Writing is like running, I think. If you’re doing it, you’re winning.

Sounds cliche, but I believe it. For a couple of reasons.

First of all, there is no way to actually “win.” In running, the fastest person in the hundred-yard-dash won’t be able to hold a candle to a marathoner’s pace. And a marathoner won’t be able to touch the explosive energy of the sprinter. He who wins a marathon this year will get edged out next year. There is no “best.” So it is with writing. There are bestsellers, sure, but they rotate as quickly as the windmill blades on that damn mini-golf hole that you can never score less than seven strokes on. And there are popular writers within genres, but the question of who is “best” is always a matter of personal preference. So, in both endeavors, you win by simply doing the thing to the best of your ability.

Then, of course, there’s the fact that by and large, running is an individual activity. Okay, on race day you might meet up with 1000 of your closest friends to pound the pavement in your town, and maybe you run with a group on the weekend, but most of the time it’s just you and your shoes (if shoes are your thing). So, too, with writing. At some point you bring in readers, and if you’re at a certain point you might have editors or agents or reviewers, but most of the time it’s just you and the computer. Or typewriter. Or notebook. Or yellow snow.

And there’s really no point in comparing yourself to anybody else, right? I could compare myself with Meb Keflezighi (yep, I definitely had to google to see how to spell that), but what would be the point? He’s been running his whole life, and I will never perform at that level, so why beat myself up about the fact that I won’t be winning any marathons? Likewise, it’d be pointless to measure myself by such yardsticks as Stephen King, or Douglas Adams, or Jasper Fforde, or Neil Gaiman (and I’m just now recognizing that I need more female authors in my go-tos); I might as well be an ant shouting obscenities at the boot descending toward my segmented thorax.

So you run for you, and you write for you, and if you’re doing those things, and doing them well enough to feel good about what you’re doing, that should be good enough, right?

Well, that’s true. But there’s something else in us, I think, that makes it impossible for us not to compare ourselves to others. We may not mean to, we may actively try not to, but, come on — can you look at the person with a bestseller credit and not feel a little pang of, “man, maybe one day?” Can you watch Meb crossing the finish line and not think, “if only I could do that?”

I think the focus, in writing and in running, should be inwardly-focused. Your concern should be yourself and your improvement, and if you can say that what you did today was better than what you did yesterday, then you’re doing all right.

But. (There is always a but.)

I have a dirty secret. I like to compare myself to those lower on the ladder.

Right? Makes me feel good to see the people struggling with things I no longer have to struggle with.

Okay, so, when I drive around and see people out slogging it in the heat, running at a pace barely above a shuffle, I gloat a little inside. Poor sap, I think. Look how hard you’re working, for so little return. I think about how much faster I am, or how much farther I can go, and I feel better about me. I get a thrill if I pass another runner when I’m out on my own run, no matter what the situation, because in that moment, I’m better.

And I’m no different in writing. In fact, I’m worse in writing. I know a blogger/writer much in the same vein as myself, an aspiring novelist working to get his/her feet on the ground (or off it, choose your metaphor). I read his/her work semi-regularly. And he/she is just awful. Every story turns to over-the-top melodrama. Every character is an unjustified badass. Every turn is so heavy-handed and abrupt that I feel thrown into a narrative ditch while reading. The grammar errors could bleed an old typewriter dry. The spelling makes me want to punch kittens. (No, I won’t name the writer. Or link the blog. I am relatively sure he/she is not a regular reader of mine.) I read his/her work and I think, man, I’m so much better than that! And it makes me feel good about my little pile of turdlets I’ve amassed in my swampy corner of the internet.

I know I shouldn’t. I feel bad as soon as I catch myself doing it. But just like reaching for one more Nacho Cheese Dorito, I just can’t help myself. Because I want to feel like I’m making progress. I want to feel like I’m, if not the best, at least better than somebody.

And I think it’s worth remembering that, while it’s true that there will always be somebody out there who’s better than you, there will also always be somebody out there who’s worse than you. That goes for writing, running, filing your tax returns, animal husbandry, and crocheting. I am probably, for example, worse than you at crocheting.

So use me. Because I’m using you. If I think you’re better than me, I’m using you as motivation; I want to get what you’re getting. If I think I’m better than you, I’m using you as motivation; I want to make sure you don’t catch up to me, or worse, pass me. Because even though I may think I’m better than you, and you may think you’re better than me, we are all better than the folks who always say, “man, I would really like to take up running,” or “I want to write a novel someday,” but still haven’t gotten off their donks to actually try it.

I can’t be the only one that thinks like this. Come on. Admit it.