I don’t identify as a runner.
Also, I’ve tracked (nearly) every single run since 2010. Only missed the ones where the app didn’t work and I decided the physical benefits of the run outweighed the archives’ accuracy. This says a lot more about my neuroses than my athleticism.
Reviewing my personal track record illustrates how truly not a runner I am. Since last September I’ve recorded an unremarkable total of 8 miles. Well, until yesterday.
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This week Jami Attenberg shared a letter from Julia May Jones to inspire her #1000wordsofsummer writers to keep on pace. She sets the stage:
I began running regularly and consistently during the pandemic, when it became the only way I could escape my family and small apartment.
Ooof. Yes. This familiar urge. I had long buried that chapter of my life where I would race home from work only to feel the need to immediately change into sneakers and run right back out. I would go as long and as hard as I could, trying to sweat out everything eating at me until I depleted myself enough to ease falling asleep. After many long runs, I rearranged my life. My mileage went down. I’ve found less of a need to escape the house now that I’m alone. And when I did try to run—like last week’s .75 miles just to get to the car before street cleaning ticketing—the attempts have been half-baked and stiff.
Julia continues:
When I wasn’t connecting to my natural speed it showed up as tension in the body—I would be leaning forward, my face furrowed, my ass clenched. I would be calling myself names, recriminating myself for my lack of effort, as if I wasn’t out there running! And when I enjoyed it, it was because I was upright, centered, relaxed—allowing my pace to be what it was, allowing others to pass me. When I was going at the correct speed (embarrassingly slow—as in walkers passed me) I could see my thoughts and feelings come at me with a little more clarity and calm and compassion. And when I was compassionate, I wasn’t in conflict with myself, and I wasn’t miserable. And because I wasn’t miserable, my runs (jogs, trots, shuffles) became more and more consistent.
Running. Writing. Living. It’s all about pacing.
A bit of a coincidence, but my therapist reminded me this week about what happens when I get too far ahead. She gracefully pointed to those moments when I’ve pushed faster, and harder, only to reach a milestone and realize I’ve lost one or more along the way.
When I find my writing goes poorly, when I don’t want to sit down….It is because I am hunched over, tense, brow scrunched, desperate to pop out the number of words I have prescribed….
Yes, yes, writing is about showing up, about placing one word after another, not worrying if it feels good or not, no hope, no fear. Yes, it is often about reaching that word count, about powering through that moment or scene. Yes, it is, as Joyce Carol Oates says, about finishing.
However I’ve come to realize that the only approach that works for me is embodied, gentle and very patient. It involves reconnecting to my breath, staring into space, closing my eyes, adjusting my posture. It involves letting the pace be what it needs to be.
I didn’t write 1000 words a day this week. That wasn’t in the cards.
But I did jump off a long call yesterday and immediately lace up my sneakers—and clocked 6.5 miles. Run #246. The longest since March 14, 2018. I distinctly remember that run through Austin in the middle of SXSW. I know what playlist I was listening to. I published a dispatch of my newsletter (“texas forever”) a few hours later.
I’m not running away from anything anymore; this time I’m running towards something new. And trying to go at a pace that sustains.
I just arrived up in the woods for a few days with just trees, sentences, and friends.
More words (and miles) to come…
xx Kyle
PS I did make some art this week! COLLAGES! 10ish minutes at a time…
clap clap clap, this gave me the energy to go do my evening run.