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Having Run, Having Written

Wednesday, Febrary 5, 2025

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.

You Have All You Need

Monday, February 3, 2025

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The joys of running with a notebook and pencil is you get a pretty good cracking idea every 1-2 miles and it behooves you to have a means to write it down.

I’m two weeks into a twelve-week plan (still have to register for the event I want to do at the end of April), and there’s a tendency to look at the gear I have, the clothes I wear, and think I really could use a wrist watch so I can have a hands-free stopwatch? Or maybe one that keeps track of distance and pace?

I quickly snap out of it. I have all I need. I have a hydration backpack that has a pocket for a phone, and phones have stopwatches. I don’t need fancy tech shirts¹, shorts, and shoes (though shoes are naturally a good place to upgrade).

The point is, with running as it is with writing, you have all you need. There’s often a rush to over-complicate things, to purchase that thing that will grease the skids or make you feel less like an imposter.

If you want to write, any writing implement and any piece of paper will do. You don’t need MS Word (unless Mariner Books demands it). Just use Google Docs or whatever free software you have. You don’t need to go on a retreat. You don’t need to attend exorbitantly priced writing conferences². Don’t be seduced by MFA programs to legitimize your pursuit.

I’m about to push my comfort zone into the YouTube Universe and I’m nervous about the gear or software I need. I remind myself. To get started, I have all I need. It was like when I started podcasting in 2013: I didn’t overthink it. I had a landline on speaker phone attached to a tripod by rubber band aimed at my laptop as I recorded the phone call. Now I have a nice set up that sounds way more polished, but I didn’t wait for the perfect set up to start.

It’s a good mantra: in most cases, you have all you need.

I have a couple from back in the day. By and large, I just deal with nipple chafing. TMI? Nah. ↩︎
Though, at some point, you’ll want to to build your community and to be a good literary citizen. ↩︎

A running writer’s companion

Listen … I am of fleeting attention. One minute I will say this is the greatest idea/hobby in the history of the world and think I should do it for the rest of my life.

Thirty minutes later say, ah, that was stupid.

So! My latest whim is to train for twelve weeks to run a simple 13.1 miles here in Eugene. The registration fee is $140, which is bonkers gross (and a reason I once flirted a little more than a year ago with an unsanctioned “race” that never came to pass on account of heat and wildfire smoke). The winter is a great time to run in Oregon. It’s chilly, wet, and the air quality is, by and large, pretty damn good.

Episode 379: Alison Mariella Desir

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Another thing that I do, which is procrastination, but it’s also part of the process, is I’ll go for a run. And, of course, anybody who’s a runner who’s listening knows this, that’s when I often get some of my best ideas.
Alison Mariella Desir, Ep. 379

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By Brendan O’Meara

Alison Mariella Desir (@alisonmdesir) is a runner, activist, and author of Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport That Wasn’t Built for Us (Portfolio).

A couple months ago I recommended Running While Black not only as a great read, but an important read. It gets into uncomfortable territory, but that’s what we need, it’s what we want, if we’re serious about inclusion, equity, diversity.

We start our conversation talking about procrastination and how running is part of Alison’s writing practice.

Episode 370: Christopher McDougall

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Tell the story from the beginning. Don’t tell it from the end. Tell it from where you were when you didn’t know anything. And that stuck with me.
Christopher McDougall, Ep. 370

By Brendan O’Meara

Love that Christopher McDougall (@ChrisMcDougall) came back to the pod. You might remember from Ep. 172. Is that right? 198 episodes ago? Can’t believe that.

Episode 352: Lauren Fleshman

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By Brendan O’Meara

Blink and you might miss Lauren Fleshman (@laurenfleshman). She’s a champion runner and the author of Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World (Penguin Press).

Her new book explores how broken our athletics systems are as they relate to women. By overlaying the female experience over the man’s construct (speak nothing of trans athletes, which is whole other ball of wax for another day), Lauren unpacks what a disservice that is for young women.

Lauren can officially boast that her book is a New York Times best seller, which is pretty bad ass. She wrote the book herself without a ghost writer, so, mad props. And in this episode we talk about:

Episode 172: Christopher McDougall — ‘Running with Sherman,’ ‘Born to Run,’ and Finding Your Stride

By Brendan O’Meara

“Like all writing is re-writing. All reporting is re-reporting.” —Christopher McDougall (@chrismcdougall)

This was a thrill. This was a blast. I know you’re going to love this too. Christopher McDougall, the bestselling author of Born to Run, Natural Born Heroes, and Running with Sherman is here to talk about his books, but also the speed bumps of his career.

How did he get his start? Where were the hiccups, and how did getting fired from a pretty steady gig in Philly turn him loose to write the book that effectively changed his life? Yeah, it’s all here, baby.

Keep the conversation going on Twitter @CNFPod and @BrendanOMeara. Instagram has been a little lax of late, but that’s @cnfpod. It’s all a mess, man!

Hope you’ve been enjoying the CNF Snacks that I’ve been putting out on Monday. Creating without Judgement and Be a Fan are the first installments. The tapas of CNF Pod.

Thanks to Bay Path University for the support and for Riverteeth’s promotional support.

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