On Writing and Running

The day is misty and cool. Dampness has darkened the spongy red surface of the track, and drops of water drip slowly from the metal benches in the stadium, from the chain-link fence, from the orange and blue hurdles stacked in lane 8. The false green turf of the infield and the real green grass beyond are saturated and slick, but the track has friction enough.

Strands of hair, wet with mist and sweat, cling to my forehead, and every couple minutes I have to unpeel my long ponytail from my neck, where it has wrapped itself like a persistent blonde snake, and fling it back over my shoulder. It slaps against the skin on my scapula with a satisfying smack. In a few minutes, as I run down lane one, eyes narrowed, teeth set, in the second of three 300 meter repeats, the ponytail will find its way back over my shoulder.

Despite the wet, despite the pain in my quads and the burn in my lungs at each turn of the track, this for me is a piece of paradise. The pain, the burn, the slight give beneath my running shoes, the rain on my skin---all are reminders that I am alive. And not just alive: alive and well. I am grateful for air, for water, for my body---every piece of it. I feel full and empty at the same time.

On some days, I feel like my legs could carry me anywhere, at any speed. Today is one of those days.

I blink water from my eyelashes, reset my watch, and go.

* * *

On another day, in another place, I am hunched over my laptop, fingers moving rapidly between long pauses. I sit cross-legged in a big green circular chair---the foldable kind that can be found in freshman dorm rooms everywhere---but I am not in a dorm; I am in the attic of an old house, surrounded by unwanted piles of clothing, bulky suitcases, unused home decor, and the odd bike. Artifacts of my life and the lives of my friends. It is night and a little cold up here, with the uninsulated floor and ceiling. The mug of tea at my feet has long since lost its warmth.

This creative essay I am working on is due tomorrow. I type, delete, type again, then rearrange, and though the process is slow and unscientific, I move steadily forward. I let the words take over. They seem to know what they are doing.

As I read over the twelve pages one final time before I shut my laptop, I wonder where these words came from. How did they get from my mind to the page in these particular sentences and paragraphs? Where did the images and metaphors come from? Inspiration is such a mysterious thing, but I am grateful for it. I am grateful that, tonight at least, it cooperated.

* * *

Running, like writing, is both a practice in discipline and an experience in liberation. And writing, like running, is both terribly painful and unpredictably exhilarating. They are forms of self-expression, participants in complicated love-hate relationships. Art, under very different guises. And for me, though the connection is at first difficult to see, unavoidably symbiotic. I need them both as much as I need food, and I need them together.

* * *

If writing and running have taught me nothing else, they have taught me, to borrow words from Madeleine L’Engle, to “keep things wound.” Many days, I eye the running shoes in my closet with a combination of guilt and dread. Will I take them out and put them on? Will I force myself out the door and into the cold spring air? I know I should; I know that later I will be so glad I did, but in the meantime anything and everything sounds more appealing---cleaning my room, checking my email, rummaging for food in the kitchen.

After all, the very real truth is that not all days are like the endorphin-soaked ecstasy of the track workout described above. In fact, the vast majority are not. There are days when my body feels about 100 lbs heavier than normal, when my legs just won’t cooperate with my mind, and when picking up the pace feels as awkward and uncomfortable as if I were a marionette with a drunk puppeteer. This is especially true when I’m getting back into shape, but still happens frequently and unpredictably at the peak of my fitness. Running, as anyone who has so much as jogged the mile in high school gym class will tell you, is not always fun. And yet, despite this, everyday---or as close to that as I can manage---I still lace up my shoes and head out the door.

This is what I mean by keeping things wound. Though at this point in my life running is something I do (theoretically) solely for my own pleasure, if I did it only when I really felt like it, the element of pleasure would slowly escape me. I would have more and more days in which runs were torturous ploddings and fewer and fewer moments of grateful strength and fluidity.

The same is true of my writing. I know I need to write every day. I know that this is the only way to improve my craft, to justify my (ok, I admit it) impractical major, and to produce anything worth reading. Somehow though, I rarely feel like doing it. Writing can be like pulling teeth, and who wants to see the dentist every day? Of course, once you’re there, it’s never as bad as you remember it, but that doesn’t mean it’s pain-free.

Even on days when I do keep my appointment with my laptop, open up a Word document, and focus my mind on character and plot, I don’t necessarily get anywhere. I don’t even want to know how many hours over the course of my life I have spent staring blankly at a computer screen unable to type more than a few halting words. Some days the sentences flow easily, and I can barely keep up with them. Most days, not so much.

But if I don’t go through the motions, if I don’t stay “in shape” verbally, if I don’t write, as Madeleine says, even “when we are physically tired, when our hearts are heavy, when our bodies are in pain,” then I will never break through those barriers of self-doubt, procrastination, and defeat that so often plague my writing. I will never produce anything of meaning or depth.

“We may not be able to make our ‘clock’ run correctly, but we can at least keep it wound, so that it will not forget.”

The beauty of this is that sometimes, unexpectedly, I (or the muses, or God, or my body) will break past the rhythm and routine, into that great and mysterious place of---could it be possible?---enjoyment.

The day I ran the best cross-country race of my life (6K or about 3.7 miles, for those of you unfamiliar with often the often overlooked sport of collegiate cross country running) was also the day I felt the worst in the hour or two before the gun went off. During my warm-up, I tried to think of an excuse---any excuse---that my coaches would except as a legitimate reason why I should sit this one out, cheer on my teammates from the other side of those colorful flags. It was a beautiful fall day, perfect running weather, but my limbs felt like lead. I was so tired, sleepy even, and the routine two miles I ran to warm my muscles had done nothing to wake me up. Am I getting sick? I wondered. I ran a few fast sprints to try shock my body into preparedness, but that didn’t seem to work either. This race was going to be embarrassing. Worse than that, it was going to be hell. At that point in my running career, as a senior in college, I had eight years of agonizing race day memories under my belt, and I knew---I knew---what late-race muscle fatigue felt like. It did not feel good.

But despite my anxiety at the line, once that gun went off, I did not hit the wall I was expecting after the first mile. I didn’t hit it after the second mile either, or the third. In fact, as the race went on, I felt better and better, not worse and worse, and I picked up my speed. By the end of the race, I was the number three finisher for my team. I had never placed even close to that high before. I was elated, but also a little bit shocked.

I remember telling myself as I ran along the wooded trails, Britta, this does not happen very often. You may never feel this good in a race again. Make it count.

I never know what is going to happen---with either my writing or my running---until it happens. The day I feel physically or mentally dry as a bone may in fact be the day the walls of frustration finally crumble.

And so I must daily keep things wound.

* * *

Most people would agree that writing is an art form. To be moved by a novel or a creative rendering of information, the fashioning of facts into a story---we know that words, properly chosen and ordered, can illicit a soul-level response. But running, is that art? It doesn’t create anything, except maybe fatigue and some endorphins. It cannot be shared with others, not in the same way that paintings or books or dance can be shared. For many, the idea of a “soul-level response” during or after exercise is laughable. And yet, running feels like art to me. It feels like my body is doing something beautiful which is not completely in my control.

Both writing and running are forms of self-expression, of getting “out” what can be explosive or agitating if it stays “in.” Sometimes there are emotions---positive and negative---which can be expressed only in an embodied and physical way because words are either insufficient or as yet unformed. And other times words are necessary and helpful; they give order and meaning to the jumble of thoughts and feelings that are the human experience.

When I run, I do not always think in words. I allow myself a break from them. Often, this break is exactly what I need for the words I do want to express to clarify, to rise to the front of my mind like butter rising from cream. Only then can I write with the precision that eluded me.

* * *

Last week was nothing but clouds and rain in Michigan. For practice one day I took the distance kids on the track team to a nearby neighborhood to run a fartlek workout. When we were a mile and a half from school, the sky suddenly darkened, thunder boomed, and we found ourselves in the middle of a torrential downpour. I ended the workout and we all took off for the high school, soaked to the skin in less than thirty seconds.

It was a miserable mile and a half dash in some ways. The roads turned to rivers and our shirts stuck to our skin like rice paper. One of the guys got a bloody nose along the way, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw him running with blood streaming across both sides of his face, blurring into the wet of the rain. He looked horrible. But he also looked intense and inspiring. We all did, or at least we felt that way. Probably we looked more like drowning cats, but we felt alive, and for once, running fast seemed like a practical and necessary skill. We needed to escape the lightning.

From "Walking on Water" by Madeleine L'Engle

"It may be that we have lost our ability to hold a blazing coal, to move unfettered through time, to walk on water, because we have been taught that such things have to be earned; we should deserve them; we must be qualified. We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.

But a child rejoices in presents!"