Sometimes you need to step outside of your head for a few minutes in order to appreciate the position that you’re in.
When you’re writing a book, it’s essential to stop and take stock and see how the work seems from a variety of angles.
One way of gaining perspective that I’ve found very useful in my writing is to do some exercise.
My main form of exercise is running. I’m lucky enough to have the polder on my doorstep. A piece of waterland, actually raised slightly higher than the neighbourhood I live in (yay for Dutch water management). Home to thousands of birds and rowers and runners and cyclists. It’s a gift having this on my doorstep and I rarely regret pulling on my shoes and heading into it even on the darkest morning in the middle of winter.
But sometimes, you get injured. And when you’re injured you can’t run. This year I ran a marathon back in March and was hoping to do another in October, but a gradual injury crept in without me really noticing and suddenly I find myself not running very much for the last couple of months.
As my running has fallen off, I’ve tried to stay active and fit in other ways – yoga, pilates and some bodyweight strength stuff like planks and pushups. While that’s great for building flexibility and core strength, it doesn’t provide the cardiovascular work that frees my mind.
Yesterday, for the first time in a while, I managed to get out and push myself through a longer faster run. I almost didn’t go. Frankly, I was worried. My ankle has been weak and has been hurting. I hadn’t really diagnosed it properly but had been resting it, icing it, stretching and walking it. It felt ready for a test after a few weeks of low load. However, during the run I could feel the muscles complaining. My greatest fear is that it’s a ligament or the tendon – the Achilles tendon. Then perhaps I’ll be out for I don’t know how long.
Still, I pushed through. Muscles in the foot complaining. Was this misuse or just getting used to doing this again? By the end, it felt ok and I felt elated.
Sometimes thoughts come to me when I’m running, sometimes not. You can’t really tell what is going to happen on any given day. There is no guarantee.
But on this day, thoughts, plots, twists, openings. It all seemed so simple. The boost of dopamine; the runners high. There it was.
It was like a veil had been lifted from my head and the path forward was illuminated. In fact the paths were there – all of them that I could wish to take.
Sometimes, the wait is worth it. And those struggles I’ve had over the last few weeks, well perhaps they seem a little diminished.