Blog 3

In Anne Lamott’s chapter on first drafts I can not help but be reminded of running, for no matter who you are, when you decide to start running for the first time in your life it is not going to be pretty or all that exciting. Lacing up your shoes all tight like those really good runners do, decking yourself out with all that cool running gear you found, then proceeding to stretch if you really want to make yourself seem legit. All of that however is just the prep, similar to the research, or in Lamott’s case the going to the restaurant and trying the food. But the first draft is actually when you start to put the pen to paper, finger to keys, shoes to the asphalt, or whatever terrain you might be luckily or unlucky enough to run upon. That first day out their running is not pretty, it is a horrific time for the runner, thoughts of why did i decide to do this, surely there is some show on TV I would rather be watching, or a friend to hang out with, Surely anything is better than this boring foot after foot repetitive action, and that’s just in the first hundred meters. Certainly the next day running may not be all that better than the first, not only is it running again with all those thoughts again but your muscles are tired from running yesterday. But eventually the running gets easier, it gets smoother, faster, one might even say enjoyable, but those feelings only come after the first painful day of running, and a second day of running. As someone, not an authority, but simply someone who has ran and than taken a long break without running, coming back to running, starting afresh again is not much better then that very first day. For it even may be worse because you are use to a certain level of performance, running those six minute miles for mile after mile; however coming back out only being able to do a couple miles, and even hose two miles at a slower pace. For those writers who have written so successfully in the past also come upon this same issue, for I wrote that well than why can’t I now, because it is not a gift readily and immediately granted, it must be strived for.