It Gets Easier
jk no it doesn't 😂
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Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Today we have a piece from Kristin on running. Except it’s not really about running. You’ll see.
[Enter Kristin]
One of the most common questions new runners ask me is whether it ever gets easier.
Yes-ish?
That’s my response.
I think it takes six weeks to get to the point where you don’t hate running. The first six weeks are hard any way you cut it and you’ve just got to gut it out. There’s no way around it. Decide and then keep deciding that running is something you want to do.
After six weeks, running typically gets easier. There’s less dread (mostly) and more routine (mostly) and sometimes (ahem, rarely) there’s even the slightest twinge of looking forward to lacing up. Gosh darn it, a habit may even begin forming.
But it doesn’t just get easier from here.
Whenever I train for a marathon, I find it absolutely mystifying that I can have a level of fitness that permits me to run 20 miles one day and then suffer through three miles a few days later. It doesn’t make any sense and as long as you’re training well and recovering properly, there’s not much sense in obsessing over it or even asking why. There are simply days when running doesn’t feel great. No rhyme or reason or blame or excuses -- it simply is what is.
Whenever I train for a marathon, I find it absolutely mystifying that I can have a level of fitness that permits me to run 20 miles one day and then suffer through 3 miles a few days later.
The same is true in our work and our efforts to put Dream Projects into the world. Almost every day I write morning pages. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years and there are days when I absolutely dread the thought of writing -- days when I avoid my composition notebook like the plague. No rhyme or reason, it is merely what is.
Does writing get easier?
Yes-ish?
Some days the words pour out; other days, my notebook feels like a barren desert. I’m learning that this is the emotional atmosphere of creative acts. And that, perhaps, the real work is in setting emotional expectations about what the task ahead will feel like.
If we anticipate the discomfort, does that make it easier to keep going?
In our experience the answer is yes; in part because you’re disabused of your idealism that this should be easy off-the-bat, and in part, because you come to respect the reality of the journey. To “forget should’s and experience is,” as W. Timothy Gallwey wrote in his classic book, The Inner Game of Tennis.
Before setting out on the next new thing, what if we considered what it will feel like?
Who might we bring with us? (Creative Allies from ‘Brainstorm Road, duh)
How many miles might we cover in that case…
Written by Kristen, posted by Margo.
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