Remind me why I'm doing this again

My compulsion to run marathons and write a book sometimes doesn't even make sense to me.

About three hours into a long run, a question popped into my brain and wrenched itself there.

Remind me why I’m doing this again?

Though I have (several) good answers to that question, I could not think of them at that moment. My posture hunched and my energy depleted, I just wanted to be done running an ungodly amount of miles as part of my marathon training.

John Henry's “Chevron” is one of the many sculptures the Chicago Lakefront Trail where I run on weekends. Photo by Snejana Iordanova on Flickr.

I’d run the first 17 miles with friends. I was grateful to have their companionship for so long. Now that everyone else had finished their mileage for the day, I’d run these last few miles alone. I stopped at a water fountain to fill my water bottle and tried to psych myself up for the 30 minutes ahead. I replaced the nagging why-are-you-doing-this question with a mantra.

Keep your head up and keep moving.

I said this over and over to myself until my watch beeped at 20 miles telling me I could stop, then slowed to a walk to cool down for a few minutes, even though I only wanted to plop down on the ground.

In a few weeks I’ll run the Chicago Marathon. I registered for the race because I wanted to reclaim a previous version of myself. Long distance running helped me feel stronger in my body and like myself again. It gives me something to do just for me that has nothing to do with my kid.

Running 20-30 miles a week plus cross-training and strength training plus the yoga and stretching to keep my body from breaking, there wasn’t free time for much else. This summer, I intentionally put aside something else that that is very important to me.

The book.

I haven’t touched my manuscript in months. After the race, I’ll turn my attention back to it. I will trade my early morning runs for early morning writing sessions. I just started a revision class this week. My plan is to take another crack at revision and continue my agent search in the new year.

I think coming back to the book after some time away will be good. I expect I’ll see gaps I wasn’t able to see before. I already feel a renewed energy for revisiting my manuscript.

Yet still sometimes a little voice creeps in. Times when I’m feeling discouraged because I didn’t get accepted into yet another writing residency or don’t hear back yet again from an editor I pitched. When I realize I’ve been writing this book for almost five years now. Initially I thought I could write it in a year. Ha!

Remind me why I’m doing this again?

Just like no one asks you to run a marathon, no one asks you to write a book.¹ Writing a full-length book is hard and doesn’t always feel inherently rewarding. Publication is the goal, but not the only goal. You only devote yourself to a book-length project because you have some sort of compulsion. We writers commit ourselves to our art, even when it's unclear to others — or even to ourselves — why we do it.

With the book, I feel like I’m 17 miles into a 20-miler. I’m close. Whether the next few months of revision are grueling or breezy (probably both), I’ve come to far to quit now. Onwards.

More from Betsy

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1. Unless you are famous, which I am not.