Why writing is just like running
Botanical journaling + beating writer’s block (Issue #284)
It’s just starting to feel like spring where I am (temperatures in the mid-50s, sort of San Francisco-ish even though I’m on the East Coast!). After a very dark, sleet-y, dry winter that had me applying moisturizer every hour, I am glad to finally participate in my favorite pastime: popping in my AirPods and running along NYC’s East River for five or six miles, or until I get through most of my workout playlist.
Surprisingly (or maybe not, given that writing and running share certain core characteristics like repetition and independence), our “running” coverage in the Medium Newsletter is pretty significant. Last May, I wrote about how it can take up to a month to start a new habit (at the time I was trying to wake up at 6 a.m. to run). Later that month, Scott Lamb taught us the 80/20 rule of training: make 80% of your workouts low-intensity and 20% high-intensity, so it’s sustainable. And, on the anniversary of the first Boston Marathon, we shared former Runner’s World Magazine editor Amby Burfoot’s story about how he won in 1968. (“I went to bed every night at 9:30 pm, and woke up the next morning at 6 am for the first of my two daily runs…”)
In celebration of Medium Newsletter Running Season coming up, as well as Women’s History Month, I want to share one more story I’ve found on Medium: Cheryl Weaver’s “Women Running Through Time,” published in Runner’s Life last year. In the process of training for a marathon, Weaver starts researching its history. The history of marathons dates back to ancient Greek myth, when messenger Pheidippides ran 25 miles from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of a victory (the first marathoner was a journalist! lol).
Marathons as a modern sport began with the Olympics in 1896 — but it wasn’t until the ’70s that women were allowed to compete. Though there’s a very colorful, and fascinating, history of women infiltrating marathons (the Boston Marathon, specifically): Roberta Gibb hid in the bushes and snuck in after the 1966 race started; Kathryn Switzer registered for the 1967 race using a pseudonym and had a man pick up her race packet.
This is the power of running (and writing): You can just do it, almost no special equipment required. “We depend on our own wills, our own bodies, our own minds to bolster us,” writes Weaver, “We fight worlds still excluding us from entry and we adjust to worlds that have only recently included us […] We walk. We jog. We run. We read. We think. We write. We breathe. Whatever form it takes, whatever recognition we do or do not get, we run the marathon.”
🌸 What else we’re reading
- If you, like me, live in the Northern Hemisphere and are irrationally excited for it to be temperate outside, here is one way to channel that energy: Start a very low-maintenance botanical journal. All you need is a watercolor sketchbook, two small brushes, a pen, and a garden or park near your home. (Anne Kullaf in Gardening, Birding, and Outdoor Adventure)
- Lent, originally from Old English lencten (spring), is the season for facing your mortality. (Stacey Simpson Duke)
- Life would be more beautiful if our phones looked like this again:
💥 A dose of practical wisdom
The truth about writer’s block: As Jenny Zhang explains, it’s usually a symptom of believing writing is not simply work.
Deepen your understanding every day with the Medium Newsletter. Sign up here.
Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis
Questions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us: tips@medium.com
Like what you see in this newsletter but not already a Medium member? Read without limits or ads, fund great writers, and join a community that believes in human storytelling.
