Wednesday, Febrary 5, 2025
Become a Patron!I can’t be sure of how many of these short essays on long running I’ll write.
Each run births an idea or two, a little riff.
I only had a four-mile run the other day, a nice little scamper on Pre’s Trail. I felt bouncy for the first time in a long time. But once I hit Mile 4 (3 down), things got heavy for some reason. An unsettling feeling. For seasoned marathoners, this happens around Mile 20.
All runners, no matter the distance, encounter discomfort and you come to expect this, so where do you put it? I knew through pain comes growth, and I knew that by walking or stopping my future self would be unhappy.
I don’t necessarily enjoy running (I do, at times), but I love having run. I don’t necessarily enjoy writing, either, but I love having written.
Present You knows this about Future You, but Present You isn’t concerned with Future You until Future You becomes Present You and it can flip the grammar.
All of this is to say unpleasantness is part of the game — every game — and those who make peace with that, dance with that, tend to have a more satisfying experience.