Outside of running and writing about running, I have another job. You know, the pays the bills kind : )
But, in all seriousness, it's also a job that I truly dig, because it's work that excites me: I teach writing at a community college. And, like most community college writing teachers, that means mostly freshman composition.
You know, the class everyone has to take, and, it often seems, so few want to?
Time and time again, in the nearly 15 years I have been doing that job, I have faced students who are nearly paralyzed with fear over a larger project. Now, a lot of this can come down to the anxiety that a test-heavy culture, which often sucks all the fun out of writing creates. And, in my case, as I mostly focus on multilingual students, it comes from the very real, hard work of trying to learn the myriad expectations and hidden rules of higher education while also trying to learn a language as convoluted and crazy as English (and English is crazy).
I empathize with them. Heck, I get stuck with writing, too. All the time. But I always tell them, it's just one word in front of another. Small steps: start with a question. Do some reading. Write a few more questions. Try to answer one. Come talk to me.
I know, from both the practical experience and research, that these small steps are the only way to really learn writing. It's why I even moved to full-on contract grading : to remind students it is all about just taking those steps. "The worst thing that can happen when you write in this class," I say often "is that I might ask you to keep writing." Just go back, try again.
Easy enough for me to say when I'm in front of the classroom or in my book-strewn teacher office. MUCH harder for me to follow when it comes to challenges of my own.
While writing a 1,500 word essay wouldn't be a challenge for me, what is a challenge is the 13.1 miles I am planning to run the first weekend in May.
In my younger and more free years, I would usually start half marathon training on a 12 week timeline. Adding a whole mile to my long run each week? No problem ... when you're 28 and single and have these long lovely weekends stretching out in front of you.
But now, as I learned earlier this summer, bumping up too fast is a surefire recipe to be sidelined with my foot on ice. A mile a week in your 40s? As a working mum? Hard no.
So. I started marathon training not with 12 weeks, or even 24 weeks. With 9 whole months.
This way, I can add not a mile a week, not even a half mile a week: I can add just a quater of a mile each week to my longerst run, and still get where I need to be.
Long run, week of Sept. 11
Does it take a long time to build this way? Yup.
Do I sometimes miss that 28-year-old body that could just pile it all on? Natch.
Bump it up: Long run, week of Sept 18
But, much as I take great teacher-ly joy in watching my students slowly turn a scattered set of sentences into one resonant paragraph, even if that takes three times longer than my lovely syllabus had planned, I am learning to take great runner-ly joy in my small progress.
Watching the quater miles creep up to hit my first benchmark on the road to 13.1 this Wednesday -- a full five miles! -- felt pretty cool. In a way, by going slowly, I also get to do that cheesy-yet-true idea of it all being about the journey, not the destination. I can enjoy those long runs more, because it's just a teeny-tiny bit more than the week before.
Important milepost: long run, week of Sept. 25
So I'll try to take my own advice. For now, I'm enjoying the slow road.
One foot in front of the other.
And again.
And again.
