Blogging Your Breakfast

I know you are thinking, “Gosh. Can it get any more boring?”

I’m thinking, “Do you really want me to answer that question?”

How did I become a writer? I learned to write at age 4 or 5 and then just never stopped. As a teenager, I self published a book of the most angst ridden crappy poetry the world will likely ever see and found the courage — the audacity — to sell it. To people I liked! As a young man at the dawn of the Internet, I co-wrote a zine, posted half-baked prose on a BBS, and emailed my work to my friends on AOL. I co-wrote and published a general interest magazine for handheld devices. No matter my occupation or job, I never let it get in the way of writing — making art and putting it out there — every day.

If you want to get better at your art, you have to make your art every day. If you want your art to spread and gain an audience, you have to put what you make out there into the world. And, more often than not, that means looking for something to inspire that art. Some days, that may mean some deep, soul moving, insight never before explored. Some days, it may be blogging your breakfast1. Some days that means the great stuff. Some days that means the less than great stuff. Some days that means the truly boring stuff. But you have to find the courage to put it out there for others to see, share, shred, or otherwise speculate on it. You often may not like what you hear but you take it and go back and make more art tomorrow.

  1. My morning consumption started as it almost always does — with a cup of coffee. A single cup, dark roast, made in a drip coffee maker. Because, let’s be real here, I’ve got three coffee drinkers in my household and I’m only half awake so I’m not plunging, pressing, or pouring-over a damn thing. More than an hour later, I had a bowl of cereal. I don’t know the brand. It is available at Trader Joe’s, is made primarily for kids, has a panda on the box, is allegedly organic, and tastes like peanut butter. I say “allegedly” because, well, how can we really be sure? How do we know this whole organic thing is not a marketing buzzword to make us all pay more to participate in the illusion. That illusion being that anything we did not grow or kill ourselves is likely crap. And, so, I move on next to a banana that is better traveled than I might ever be. ↩

Finished

That is what really matters. Not the time. Not the pace. Not the wall that I seems to hit between mile nine and ten where I just could not keep my heart rate down and thus fatigued easily.

But, I finished. I ran 13.1 miles. The longest I have ever run before is 10k. So, I managed to run more than double my longest distance. I can be proud of that. That’s what matters.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, 70 degrees, light breeze. It was so nice just to be outside with the sun kissing the skin. It is the first big run of the season so it is very popular. There were 1196 other people running the half marathon portion alone.

I’m hooked now. I’ve already signed up for the half portion of the Minneapolis Marathon in early June, As I said yesterday, I did next to no training for this last one. I’ll not make that same mistake next time. Now that I know I can run that distance, I’ll keep doing so and work on increasing my time.

If I can offer any inspiration at all regarding my own journey, please remember that I have been at this with any seriousness at all for only a little bit more than a year. I’m certain, based on my own condition, that anyone can do it. It’s a beautiful world. Get out there and run in it.

I’m a writer. Writing is how I make this world better, friendlier, stronger place. If these words improved your day, please let me know by contributing here.

My First Half

I’ll be running the Get In Gear Half Marathon this weekend. This will be my first half marathon. My feelings on it are positive in general but still somewhat mixed. Let me explain.

See, I have done very little in the way of training. The reasons are several. The weather here has still been winter like. Temps in the low thirties and snow as recently as two nights ago. I usually have no issue with running in winter weather when it’s winter. But I’m so sick of it by this point that I absolutely refuse to run in it in the spring. Furthermore, I hate running on the treadmill. I find them disorienting and unrealistic. I can only do a couple of miles before I start feeling like a hamster.

In addition to this, I did not expect my overall recovery after the GORUCK Challenge to take as long as it has. It was not until about the end of last week that my knees finally felt well enough to get out there for any real distance at all. I’ve run a couple of times since, no more than 5k, and that was a challenge and much slower than my pre-GORUCK training pace.

Now, as an aside, I want to explain that I purposely put this half-marathon on the schedule for a month after the Challenge. In fact, I plan to put some big thing to train for about every month or so (next I’m heavily pondering is the Minneapolis Half Marathon in early June). The fact is that if I have nothing big to train for I fear I will lose the motivation to keep it up at all.

But, like I said, my feelings on this weekend’s half marathon are actually positive and optimistic.

First of all, I not only underestimated the recovery time I would need following the Challenge but I also underestimated how much it would change me mentally. A couple of days ago, I decided to break the “no running a week before the race” rule than many subscribe to and decided to go out and run a 10k. Not only did I keep near my regular 10k pace but I also found myself able to mentally push myself past points I would have slowed down or, even, walked it out for a bit in the past. It is often said that the GORUCK Challenge is all mental but you can’t really understand that until you do one. Then you get the idea of what it takes, mentally, to push past fatigue and discomfort. To “embrace the suck” as they say. Also, what it takes, mentally, to just keep going with no know end in sight. Eventually, you just forget about it ever ending, enter a state that is quite similar to meditation, and just let your mental auto-pilot take over. I experienced this once again on this 10k run. I got finished and felt like I still had plenty of fuel left to burn.

And, here is another thing I know. The Challenge took me 15 miles with a 45 pound ruck on my back and carrying parking barriers and logs for most of that in a thunderstorm. Therefore, I know I can run 13.1 miles with nothing but shorts and a shirt on. Even if I had to walk it I know I can complete it.

Lastly, it is forecast to be a beautiful day. The first we have had in a long time. Temps near 70 and sunny. What better way to enjoy it than with a great scenic morning run and 1500 fellow runners doing the same? I even have a few friends running the half as well and hope to meet up with them before or after.

So, I know this is a lot of “Inside Baseball” but, really, it is all just a note-to-self that says, “You got this. You’ll be fine.”