My Writing Journey is a Marathon

I’m only 3 days in and I’m already starting to feel the heat. It’s 3 am and I have a blank page in front of me, even though I’ve been thinking about what to write all day. I’m beginning to understand just how challenging and time consuming this goal is going to be.

But I’m also excited. It’s a goal that’s hard for me, but one that really could change everything. Before I ran my first half marathon in 2019 I had never considered myself an athletic person. A part of me thought those personality traits were for other people. Even though I knew that I could do an individual run, or lift weights one day at a time, it took the goal for me to really unlock the athletic side of myself. This goal → habit → identity → habit → growth was my key takeaway from Atomic Habits by James Clear. According to The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, I’m a “Rebel”, someone who who does not respond well to internal nor external motivation. The only thing that really works is intrinsic motivation based on my identity, and I can tell that achieving this goal will change how I view myself.

When people begin training for a long race, they report that one of the unexpected benefits is that trying to fit in a long run ends up forcing them to plan a relaxing night atleast once per weekend. Lots of people say they stopped drinking on Saturday nights to push harder on Sunday morning long runs. Not everyone does of course, but for the people who do it’s impossible to tell whether life changes are caused by the running or just the menial acts of preparing for runs.

Abandoned abstract watercolor by Ben, June 2021