The idea was simple. Two tasks—write and run—every day, for 31 days.
I made it 20 days.
What happened? Good question. The short answer is that I fell out of my aimed streak due to a complete lack of time on Day 21. The long answer is, despite keeping to it for the previous 20 days, I let my guard fall on planning ahead on that one day after. More specifically, I knew that my time was limited, and as such I should have planned ahead to do both tasks, regardless of the amount, and I should have planned to do both early, early, early.
That said, I’m okay with the fact that I failed to make it to the 31-day goal, because even the 20-day effort was longer than most streaks I’ve had in the past (especially running…I had never spent 20 days in a row running before, and it left me with a slight ankle limp and noticeably sore calf muscles), and completing those two efforts for that many days in a row came with it a number of revealing lessons. It was a chance for me to learn a little more about myself I wouldn’t have otherwise realized.
So, now what? Well, a few things. First, a couple of notes on what I learned in my efforts. Then a little tidbit on what comes next.
The Back Drop
Okay, so for anyone not familiar, the #WriteandRun31 challenge is the brainchild of runner, author and blogger Matt Frazier and his sister Christine, the inspiration for it coming from a blog post written by Seth Godin. They set forth a goal for anyone interested to either write and run every day for 31 days straight (with the ultimate goal of paving the way for better habits in 2015), or to do something similar. In other words, if you don’t like to write or run, you could replace those activities with another form of creative effort and form of exercise.
For me, writing and running are two things I’ve been trying to embed into my life more and more over the years, and while I’ve written professionally for a long time I have, like many, struggled to get myself on a regular pattern of writing more creatively. Granted, I tend to write creatively as part of my day job, but what I mean is writing in the way of fiction, poetry and/or creative nonfiction (essays, blog posts, etc.).
For more on the #WriteandRun31 challenge, click here.
Lessons Learned
The biggest and truest lesson I learned in all of this was that, despite what I originally thought, it is entirely possible to complete these tasks every day, regardless of how busy one’s schedule might be. When you commit to this kind of effort, you find a way to squeeze it in somehow. I surprised even myself with this reality about 13 days in, when I knew the day ahead was going to be completely devoid of all free time, and as such I rose at 3 a.m. to run that day, something I don’t anticipate I’ll repeat anytime soon, if ever again. It was painful, I hadn’t slept much, and it was freezing out, so my body screamed and begged for me to not try it. But I did, and was able to get that day’s run in, so, yeah. No regrets there, just a bit of exhaustion by day’s end.
Also, from a running standpoint, the effort allowed me to start to really listen to my body in ways I hadn’t before. About two weeks in, soreness reared its ugly little head down on the outside of my left ankle, which didn’t really come as a surprise. In my youth, I sprained both ankles a handful of times, and after years of no regular activity, I noticed occasional ankle soreness after I started running regularly in 2013. But this was different—the soreness remained this time, as opposed to fading out hours after a run. I did some research on ankle strengthening, ultimately picked up a few resistance bands and started a few small daily stretches, which made an almost immediate difference.
Now, from the end of writing, I came to test out this a little bit. I tried initially to run in the morning and write at night, given my current work and family schedule. But then a few weeks into it I wondered, what if I switch it around? Can I do that? I did, and I could. I’ve battled this internally for some time, whether it’s better to write at night or in the morning, and will be digging into this a little more down the road, because I think it’s an interesting topic. It’s a question that has no real answer, it’s different for every writer. Having tried both, I can honestly say I’ve seen the benefits of morning and night writing, but ultimately, for me at least, there is nothing quite like rising early to the quiet world and writing with the help of some hot coffee. But I was curious about this, and I even received some interesting feedback on this when I asked Fantasy Writer Ksenia Anske about it on Twitter. Anyway, more on that later.
To see how things went over the course of those 20 days, click here.
The “Now What?” of it All
So, what’s next? Having participated in this little experiment—and many thanks to Matt and Christine Frazier for setting that up; I think what they are doing is fantastic and really appreciate their continued inspiring efforts—I realized that even the smallest amount of effort adds up, and that in the end it’s the continued persistence that makes the real difference. Sustained habit.
So for me, personally, my aim is to return to my daily writing routine, add in a touch of meditation and resume my running with a little bit of a tweaked plan that alternates the runs with yoga and or some time on the stationary bike. And no, I don’t plan to berate any Twitter followers on what I’m doing in that regard. The reason I tracked my efforts with #WriteandRun31 was to showcase the result of the experiment, which you can see above.
