Why Meandering Marathons?

Growing up I was never a runner.  I didn’t try out for the track or the cross country team and though I thought I was fast I didn’t think about what it would take to run long distances let along 26.2 miles.  Later in life I became a runner.  I started out running on the treadmill at the gym to lose weight. Then when Spring arrived I decided to leave the gym and hit the roads.  I remember the first time I ran a really long distance, which at the time was 8.5 miles.  After 1 mile I was doing ok, at the 2 mile mark I was feeling it, and at 3 miles I wondered what I was thinking and if I should just quit.  Then something happened at about 3 miles, I started to tell myself to just push through and keep running.  I knew deep down that I could do it and that the pain would be worth the feeling I would have completingthe run.  The next mile was tough but with each step I grew stronger in my resolve and more comfortable with my stride.  The beauty of running out there on my own with the trail drew me in and made me a runner. The solace I had with my own thoughts and feelings helped the miles drift by.  That solitude and the fact that I was running around a lake and once you made it out 4 miles the only way back was to continue around the other 4 helped keep me moving.  Looking back now after having run two marathons and running around that same lake many times I value what it has taught me about life and about writing.

Anything you do is hard the first time and it takes practice to get good at it.  You can’t give up just because the hill is steep.  When you are running its all you, there isn’t anyone that can do it for you, and in the end you need to do it for yourself not for anybody else.  Writing shares many of the same traits.  Sometimes it can be hard, but you need to sit down and do it every day to get better.  I decided to call this blog “Meandering Marathons” because writing a novel is like a very long run and though I might make some mistakes and lose my way on the path I know where I am going and what the end goal is.

 I think that if more people took a long view of things instead of looking at the short term we would be better off.  How does what we do today affect where we want to be tomorrow?  Here on this blog I am planting the seeds of my tomorrow.  I hope that I can inspire others to do the same thing; to start something new that helps them grow as a person.  Running helped me change who I was and not in just a physical way.  Yes I lost weight and was healthier for it, but in the end it was the lessons I learned about finishing what you start and standing on your own.  The fact is that you don’t start out great at anything and that it takes training, determination, and willpower to get to where you want to be.  As for my marathons I didn’t get the time I wanted on either of them but the important thing is that I finished them.   That is the main lesson I hope to bring to my writing: Finish what you set out to do.   I just need to keep writing.  

Later this week I will let you all in on where I am in my first book.  Have a great week leading up to Memorial Day.   It’s a wonderful time to get in a long run.