On Keeping a Running Journal
“The habit of writing for my eye is a good practice. It loosens the ligaments.”
—Virginia Woolf
Let me start with a basic truth: I learned to write by writing, and I learned to run by running. I know of no alternative, and I’m openly suspicious of anyone who might be brave enough to claim otherwise—whether it be by reading books, attending lectures, watching others, or listening to podcasts.
When it comes to reading and writing, there is no better teacher than experience, although as the Norwegian proverb says, “the tuition is high.”
This is true. While maybe not in fiscal terms, it is fair to say that some costs prove their worth when paid for with hard and attentive work rather than measly dollars and cents. And that, in a nutshell, is why I keep a running journal. It is to my running experience what an account book is to my money: a record of my actions, my habits, my gains, my losses. It tells me the story of me—of my gloried failures and my failed glories. It tells me the story that I didn’t know I knew until after I wrote it—until days, months, or even years later, when I revisit my words and read who I was and discover how I made sense.
I have four different journals—one for running, one for teaching, one for coaching, and one for chronic self-loathing (a.k.a. my writing journal). When I say the word “journal” I don’t mean a “running log.” I mean, something with actual words in it—full sentences even.
“It is to my running experience what an account book is to my money: a record of my actions, my habits, my gains, my losses. It tells me the story of me—of my gloried failures and my failed glories.”
True, I keep track of the data (which is also recorded with my Garmin GPS watch and stored on the Garmin Connect website). The data is important—how fast I ran, how far I ran, where I ran, what splits I ran. It even records my heart rate.
But quantitative data never tells the complete story. Not even half it. Barely an inth of it.
When it comes to the real story, the deep story, the truest of all the stories, I put my trust in words—in the anecdote, the qualitative assessment.
If data consists of facts, words comprise the story.
And it is the story that most interests me when looking back at a previous experience. Example: I am coming up on a 5k race, a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, that I have run three of the past four years. A year ago, according to my running journal, I was worried about the race because I was feeling like my base was “thin.” That’s the word I used—thin. I have no idea what that word meant to me then, nor why I chose to write it (it strikes me as an odd metaphor), but I know what it means now, coming off a spring when I had the greatest volume of training in my life—a peak mileage nearly thirty percent more than anything I’d ever run before. True, my recovery from this period was troublesome, but six months later I am feeling a base that is the opposite of thin. I feel a base that is strong, sturdy. I daresay pretty fat.
This helps me make sense of the data that I’m producing right now with my workouts and easy runs. As with anything in our lives—our home story, health story, work story, love story—we move through peaks and valleys. We have periods where the groove is effortless, the connection with others is real and easy, and periods when we feel more awkward than our junior high days. As we move into and out of these peaks and valleys, we leave in our wake a storyline, a plot development, maybe even a Shakespearean five-act structure.
Last year I was leery, frightened, feeling less than confident about taking on a marathon challenge.
This year is the opposite. Why?
The answer is in my journal.
A year from now I may be facing another difficult period of running—maybe an injury, maybe a funk, maybe low self-esteem. I know that the confidence I’m building today will lead to an eventual fall. This grace is unsustainable.
But like what Woolf said, the journal keeps my ligaments loose, literally and figuratively. It gives me perspective to keep from taking the highs too seriously, nor the lows too sardonically.
I can appreciate where I am today because I recorded where I was six months ago, and I can trust that where I was six months ago will be temporary when it happens to take place again. I can do this because the evidence of my history is recorded in the words of my journals—and while I would like to say these journals lead me every year to be a better runner, a better teacher, a better coach, and better writer, the truth is that better is relative and it may not be there.
But one thing for sure, I’ll be wiser.
And as for me, I’ll take wiser over better any day.
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