Finish the (Writing) Race

I’ve always wondered if Paul in the Bible knew a lot of runners. Oh! Maybe Greek Olympians! Wouldn’t that be cool?! He used a lot of running analogies in his writing. Lately, I’ve started thinking about writing in terms of running.

Kitty's Runner's Journal

You might have heard me talk about running here. I talk about it on Facebook a lot because we (John and I) just completed a 14k race (about 8 ½ miles). The City 2 Surf race, with 80,000 entrants, is the third largest foot race in the world! Not only was it fun, but we both came in under our goal times! In 3 ½ weeks we’ll be running the Sydney Running Festival’s half marathon (21km, 13 miles), both for fun and to raise money for a charity, CHUM Therapeutic Riding.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned about running and writing over the last year or three…

• You may not finish the race if you don’t train long enough beforehand. I thought I was going to die the first time I ran a 5k race. I’d only been in training for 9 weeks. I finished, but thank goodness the race wasn’t longer.
• If you don’t train properly, you might hurt yourself and not be able to run the race at all. I bought the wrong shoes and hurt my foot so badly I had to drop out of a race two weeks before it started, no money back, months of training wasted.
• Training sucks – unless you decide it doesn’t. Attitude is at least 75% of how I keep going. John and I used to sleep in when it rained. But we got further and further behind in our training. One day we just had to decide – do we want to run that race in five months or not?
• The more you know about the course, the better prepared you can be and the more likely you’ll finish well. The City 2 Surf course is very hilly. One hill is even called “Heartbreak Hill.” When our friend Steven drove us from beginning to end, we could see and mentally prepare for what we’d need to do on race day. We also added a lot more hill training to our prep work because we could see we wouldn’t be prepared if we didn’t. We both ran, not walked, up Heartbreak Hill.
• “I’m running for distance, not for speed.” Sometimes I get up before dawn and haven’t slept well and can barely get out the door and sooo don’t want to run. I can feel I’m running slower and I have to focus on my posture because I’m slouching from being tired. Then instead of letting the negatives get me down, I repeat that mantra in my head. Amazingly, I’ve never quit before the assigned distance for the day has been run, and I often finish with a far better time than I expected (i.e., slower, but not nearly as slow as it felt! LOL!).
• A runner’s journal will help you find your strengths and weaknesses over time. I know I run better in the cold than in the heat or humidity. I’m better in the morning before breakfast than in the afternoon. I’m good at pacing, but need to work on speed. I know what sports supplements give me more energy and which ones give me a stomachache. Because I write it all in the journal.
• Even though I’ve never considered myself athletic, and have been a couch potato most of my life, I have to run 1-2 miles just to get into the groove. MILES, people!! I couldn’t run one mile when I was 18!
• I can’t compare myself to other runners, but I can compare myself today to my runs yesterday, last week, last month. I’m running significantly longer (our short runs 3x a week right now are 10k each (!) plus a “long” run on the weekend) and I’m getting faster all the time. Sure, practically everybody passes me. But maybe she’s been running since she was 10. Maybe he’s only running one lap and I’m pacing myself for three.
• I can’t run hard and fast all the time to run my best race. Neither can I let my training slide. I have to run uphill, downhill, long slow runs, short fast runs, and I have to include strength training and adequate stretching as well. I learned this by reading books and magazines on running, and by asking other runners.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have to explain the connections to writing. Whatever our chosen “training” is, we need to keep it consistent. If it’s every day, do it. But if it’s only Saturday morning, don’t compare yourself to other writers. You need to write every Saturday morning. Period.

And we need to keep track of what we’re thinking and feeling and listen to our subconscious guiding us. It’s the same way a runner listens to her body. If my knee hurts, it might be because my foot is striking the ground incorrectly. If my shoulders hurt, it’s because I’m tensing up as I get tired. When I pay attention, I can correct the problem and the symptom fades. It’s the same with writing.

Kitty's new Writer's Journal!

And yet as I write this, I think, why am I comparing my routines to other writers’ (write every day, write 100 words a day, write 10 pages a day, etc.) instead of checking my routines against my own past? Are both quality and quantity improving compared to this time last year? Two years ago? (Yes!) And why don’t I have a writer’s journal? I’m starting one today! (See the picture!)

I’ll close with some of my favorite running quotes from Paul and other Biblical writers. See if you can find a correlation between running races in the quotes and in your own writing life. Godspeed!

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training… Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly… (1 Corinthians 9:25-26)

Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:30-31)

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:7)