5k, 29’ and change

I’ve been running on and off for over three years now, and I finally got organised enough to enter my first race last weekend - a five kilometer race around the park - and I feel great for finally making it happen!

The distance is pretty much what I run when I manage to get out and hit the road, but the real achievement was to stand alongside fellow runners and say ‘I can do this.’  I had no idea how long it would take me to run the route, and I underestimated my finish time by about five minutes.  I crossed the finish line just after the average time for the race – should have fired up the Van Halen soundtrack a little earlier…

But that’s the point of standing up and showing the world what you’ve got –  on Friday, I had no idea how good a runner I was.  Now I do, with a benchmark time that shows I can run competitively, and a goal to beat.

And a medal.  Don’t forget the medal.

Five runs?

I'm making up for lost time after three weeks of self imposed sitting down to edit Coalface - so I'm on my fifth run in as many days.

Five runs?  Yeah, five runs.

Okay, five short runs.

Day one was as much staggering as running.
Day two was all running, but I was good for nothing at the end.
Day three was... pretty good.
Day four better...
Day five, and I'm back up to speed.

After thinking I'd lost my running mojo, there it was - I just had to work for it.

I'm feeling the same thing about starting the follow up stories to Coalface and Hidden Daughter.  
Getting into the rhythm of being open to every possible new idea in an emerging story is a different discipline to making everything flow inside a finished one.

Then I find an old photo, or a quote, or work out the age of someone in 1882... and I'm off again.

Whatever you're working on, if you get the feeling you're stuck at day one or two, stick with it - day three is just around the corner.

Resolutions

 A bit late in the day perhaps - who said you could only make them at New Years?

A lot of the resolutions I made were to do more of what I do now - more writing (natch), more running (DIY does not match up, however many cupboards you demolish and doors you hang) more risotto (with barley - will report fully when I've perfected it).

The newer, more frightening resolutions are:
 - read my work to a public audience as often as possible
- sign up for and complete a 10k run
- complete a full working draft for the sequel to Hidden Daughter before New Years Eve
- finish reading all the books I mentioned when I talked about reading last year

With the snow outside, running's gone for a burton, but I'm busy working through the books (really enjoying Paula Rawsthorne's Truth About Celia Frost) and I've signed up to the open mic slot at Alt Fiction this year - will keep you posted on the others as I go along.

Bumpfh

Running was hard yesterday.  Really hard. 
I felt good setting off, then had a classic 'why am I doing this' moment, then got past that, then bumpfh.  There's no other way to describe it; bumpfh.  I just didn't feel like I had a run inside me.
It can be the same with writing.  All of a sudden, the clatter of the keyboard stops, and I realise the cursor hasn't done anything but blink at me for five minutes, like a patient dog.
Everything inside me told me to turn back.  Not your day.  Give up on a bad job.  Bumpfh is a comfy thing; cosy, reassuring as it helps you take off the running shoes, or switch windows from your WIP to your browser.  Or switch off.

In the wind and dark, I switched playlists on my mp3 player, and kept going.

Some of it was walking; my body was part of the bumpfh conspiracy, pulling a stitch out of the 'can't run' bag to block my way.  Some of it felt like spectacularly poor running; the kind where you think you're not making any more progress than you would with a swift walk.

But I moved forwards.

At the end, I did a sprint finish in the dark; I outran the security light at the end of my street, passing it before it could cast it's glare over me.  I felt that sensation I must have had when I ran downhill as a kid; when your body places your feet with a precision you couldn't dream of actively replicating.  It felt amazing.
That's what this blog post is about; just the process of writing, putting words in order on screen or on paper is important to me.  It should be rewrites for Coalface, but this is a good alternative.  All I have to do is keep the words moving, and the internal power of Freddy's story will do the rest.

I ran yesterday.  And I'm writing today.  Because that's what I do to move forward.  I hope you move forward today, too.

Momentum

I've been lax on running over the last couple of weeks - days when I should have done it have been given over to other stuff, or final editing for Hidden Daughter.  I've ditched four wheels for walking and cycling to get some sort of exercise to fill in the gaps, but there's a nagging feeling I'm not doing enough.

Then I arrange to meet up for a drink in town last night - I head for the bus stop, and see the bus sail past the end of the road...  The next thing I remember is saying 'hello' without a wheeze to the bus driver, then taking my seat in a debonair fashion, rather than collapsing in a heap on the floor.  Between those two points, I must have sprinted like a gazelle.  Because I run, and walk and cycle a bit more than I used to- all those little bits accumulate to help my body achieve what I wanted to do.

It's the same with writing - as I'm reaching the final chapters of line edits for Hidden Daughter, my skills in understanding what works and doesn't work, what drives story forward or builds character for a conclusion which will surprise, or delight, or horrify the reader has started to become second nature.  But it's only through continually moving myself forward as a writer that I can achieve it.

The most exciting thing though, is that the process of writing one story has opened my mind up to the possibilities of stories in different worlds, as well as the one occupied by Penny and her Catherine - I just have to find a way to type and run...

Just 4 miles

I was about to write that it's not a lot - but it's all relative.

I hadn't planned on running that morning, and when the chance came up in the evening, I took it.
I only had about an hour, so I ran as far as I could in that.
And while I was mentally grumbling that the music in my headphones was hard to keep up with, one of the characters in my story explained why they wanted to see Penny, my central character. Then Penny gave her reaction to the meeting, and the kind of request a character should leap at in a story. Then everything kicked off in the setting of the bricabrac-infested flat Penny hides away in.

So it was just four miles, but when I look back on how far I've come, it's a long way.