For many writers, the correlation is clear. Running is part of the creative process that allows the mental space to write and helps keep focus on the goals laid out. But what does that correlation look like in practice?
by 
I was a heavy-set child. Most of my time was spent in solitude, playing video games or writing down the dreams I had, almost always in preference for sedentary activities rather than physical because I was never the fastest of the group. This made the long evenings spent playing tag or spud—a game where a ball is tossed in the air by a person, who shouts out the name of another person, who then catches the ball, causing those who scattered to freeze, and take four of the largest steps they could muster toward whoever was unfortunate enough to be closest to ball catcher, who would then throw the ball at them in an attempt to “tag” them, which resulted in me being “it” nearly every other round—even longer. Though my mom pushed for me to become more involved in sports, putting me on recreational soccer teams in my small hometown, it didn’t stick. After four, maybe five, years of soccer, I quit to spend even more time alone with my latest PlayStation 2, Xbox, or GameCube game.
When in middle school, I was the heaviest I would ever be as a child. I didn’t know it then, but looking back on those years of my life, I was most certainly depressed. The tension percolating in my household between my parents, who then separated just before high school, affected me in ways unknowable then. Whenever I could, I avoided my friends, shut myself inside my room, and focused on each new video game to the point of exhaustion, which I now recognize was a means to distance myself from reality. The idea of facing the outside world was terrifying, overwhelming even. I simply didn’t want to. But in time, this passed. It wasn’t long after those months of self-imposed loneliness that I was outside with my neighborhood friends, playing games—even spud—and running around the local park. This was the first I noticed a peculiar correlation: the more I ran, the better I felt; not just physically but mentally, too.
Years later, after another bout of deep depression following high school graduation, when most of my friends left our hometown for four-year universities elsewhere while I attended the local community college for a lack of knowing what I wanted my life to amount to, I turned back to running. And it was during these years that I developed a routine, one that laid what I know now is the groundwork for my life as a writer.
Most of my days, I’d awake between 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. I’d make myself a fresh pot of coffee and cook breakfast, usually eggs and toast, reading as I ate. Once finished, I’d return to my room to write for an hour, maybe more if I was lucky, before going for a run ahead of my morning shift at Barnes & Noble, a shift that required I be there by 7 a.m. I was nineteen at the time, and it was one of the most generative periods of my life (both in terms of writing itself and learning how to become a better writer). Each morning brought with it renewed excitement about the process and the prospect of typing up a few more words, making it another mile. That excitement and joy carried me through to the end of the day.
The act of writing, the time and space to turn words over in my head, to experiment with forms and ideas, to clack away at my little keyboard, brought me that joy and excitement—it still does. But I would be remiss to acknowledge the fact that running allowed for that time and space (both physically, due to the routine, but also mentally) to write. This habit I carried with me for several years afterward. While my thoughts on routines have changed, I still acknowledge the importance of showing up. Now, on the cusp of thirty-two, I’m reminded of the tenacity I held toward running.
There is no shortage of voices linking the correlation between running and writing—Jake Solyst recently wrote about the joy of running competitions. Though the movements of the two are vastly different, each has much in common. It’s precisely why many writers become involved in running—or take up walking, at the least.
Take Matt Bell, for instance. A lifelong writer, at the age of thirty-five, he decided to take up running in an effort to get into better health. Eight years later, he’s still going the distance, training and competing for marathons while publishing books such as Appleseed and Refuse to Be Done.
In his September newsletter, he spoke directly about his relationship to running and writing. Over the course of numerous interviews, one question he consistently gets asked is what he’s learned about writing from running or vice versa. “It’s a question I ponder often,” Bell writes, “in part because I’m absolutely sure that it’s the mental habits I built to become a writer that allowed me to become a better runner than that slow, slow mile I ran decades ago in gym class might’ve suggested was possible: it’s the brain, not the body.”
It’s the brain, not the body, that powers both running and writing. Bell goes on to outline the nine “shared tactics,” as he calls them, for the mental habits formed. Each offers an applicable, practical take on the overlap between the two and deepens a writer’s connection to their efforts (both physical and mental). And if there’s any that rang loudest with truth for me, it was the final point: “Novel writing is an endurance sport. So is the writing career.” While I’ve yet to write a novel, I’ve been in dogged pursuit of a writing career for more than ten years now—thoughts of giving up aplenty. Yet, just as I pushed myself to surpass that one-mile mark when I was nineteen and starting out, both with writing and running, I am reminded, time and again, to continue to push myself so that I, too, can go the distance.
There are plenty of other famous writers who dove deep into the pool of running. Ian McEwan goes for a walk if he becomes stuck with his writing. Most of James Joyce’s work focused on day-to-day life in Dublin, which he pulled from his own life as he walked his route around the city. But Haruki Murakami is by far the most vocal about his devotion to running and its relationship to writing.
As a former jazz bar owner and manager who admittedly smoked 60 cigarettes a day, Murakami started running to get healthy after his decision to sell his jazz bar to become a full-time novelist. For him, it became part of his process that allowed him to write successfully for almost forty years. It kept him focused on his goal and gave him a place and necessary time to help develop his stories. Murakami even went so far as to publish a memoir about running, writing, and their intersectionality while training for the New York City Marathon.
When we run, when we move, we enter into a personal contest of physical endurance. With each foot pounding against the pavement, we urge ourselves to move forward a little further. This is just the same as writing — we put one word down, then another, another; before long, we have a sentence, a paragraph, two pages, ten, and it goes on.
[Running] is just the same as writing — we put one word down, then another, another; before long, we have a sentence, a paragraph, two pages, ten, and it goes on.
Many times I’ve heard successful writers say that writing is easy, and when I was younger, I believed them, thinking I was inadequate for thinking it wasn’t easy. I’d write in the mornings during whatever time I managed to steal away, then go for a run to clear my head. Over time, the sentences, though they didn’t become easier to write, became more purposeful, maybe a bit longer, maybe not much better than they were from when I’d first started; there were more of them. Over time, a half mile became one, became three, four, five.
I am older now, and I have far less time than I did back then. Most days, despite my best efforts, I sleep until the last minute, reserving little time for my writing and for my morning runs—or any exercise for that matter. If I do exercise, it’s in the basement with my wife, the iPad set on the small wood table as we follow along with the Apple+ Fitness coach onscreen. Though I try to be consistent with my writing, my head is overcrowded. It’s been too long since I’ve cleared it out. But all it takes is to move, to walk, just a block, a few more, faster and faster, to run. One foot hard against the sidewalk after the other.
Photo by Andrea Leopardi on Unsplash
