Running in the Rain
In a 1999 essay for the New York Times Joyce Carol Oates muses about running. She says: “Ideally, the runner who’s a writer is running through the land- and cityscapes of her fiction, like a ghost in a real setting.”
I am beyond thrilled to know that I share a habit with one of the best (and most prolific) writers in the US. As I’ve said before, it’s a fairly new hobby for me, but one that has a great impact on my life, health, and art.
These days I’m always wrestling with one story or another — at the moment I’m trying to finish a short story on a tight (read: One Week) deadline — and I’m not sure if I could even try to meet that goal if not for running at lunch.
It’s winter in Portland and usually that means rain. But this year, it’s been a dry winter. I’ve run more on dry sidewalk than wet this year. I try not to enjoy the sensation of running without rain gear; I know it’s temporary. What I like about running in the rain is the sheer solitude. In the summer the sidewalks are filled with fellow office workers looking for a little sunshine. In winter, though, it’s just me, the geese, and their poop.
The first five minutes of any run are horrible. I spend the entire time trying to convince myself not to quit. The next five minutes is only slightly better, as I settle into a rhythm and begin to think of something besides how much I want to stop running. After ten minutes though, I break through that strange miasma, and I’m running and writing.
It’s odd, to be sure. Sometimes I get the most marvelous dialog flowing as I run, and by the time I get back to my desk (after showering, of course. Otherwise: poor coworkers!), with a few minutes left in my lunch hour, the words have literally been washed from my mind.Sometimes I have to clamp down on an idea so that I don’t lose it. Tuck into the corner of my mind, hold the idea tight, or it will melt away.
Sometimes, the very best times, I want to shout with joy at the idea that just arrived in my brain. It’s a plot twist or a motivation, an ending, or even, sometimes, a beginning. And I don’t know if I would have gotten it without the chance to run.
I almost included “the sidewalks of SE International” in the dedication for my first novel. It was, after all, conceived on my, then walks, expanded on those early runs, and polished over the miles.
What a gift I have given to myself! Time, silence, solitude — all that in addition to the health benefits. This writer’s secret weapon: running shoes.
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