In my Chinese family, many of my older relatives are astonished when they learn I enjoy long-distance running. First, they assume “long distance” implies one or two miles. Then, when I tell them it’s actually 26.2, they stare at me as if I’ve forgotten how to count. The more traditional ones say something along the lines of, “Girls shouldn’t run so much.”
Over time, however, their complaints have lessened. In recent years, running has grown more mainstream in China, especially among the post-1980s generation. With the rise of the middle class and the influence of globalisation, running clubs have become more popular, as have recreational races. While for women, pale, youthful and slender remains the gold standard for beauty in China, there is also a divergent push for more expansive definitions – one that takes into account physical and mental wellbeing, rather than just thinness. For many of my runner friends, long-distance running is about more than exercise. It’s about endurance, independence and doing the thing we thought we couldn’t do. And as a writer, it’s about expanding the possibilities – the parameters of one’s imagination.
The reason I started running was the same reason I started writing. I’m someone who likes to immerse myself in long, deep thoughts, as if putting myself in a semi-trance state. The process of setting out on a new creative project often feels like diving underwater and losing yourself in the dark, murky waves. Long-distance running shares this surreal quality. Time ceases to exist. Pain fades, as does rational thought. The only thing on your mind is the beat of sneakers against pavement, the pulse of your heart, and the steady, even rhythm of your breaths coming in and out like meditation. And like meditation, what long-distance running trains is focus. Focus not on your goal, but on the journey itself.
When I’m writing a novel, I’m creating something so large and complex that it isn’t possible to have the end in sight. When I start writing that first page, there is no way I’ll know what the final product of the finished novel will look like. This makes the experience exciting, but also fairly intimidating. How can I possibly begin in the dark and then keep going – with no end in sight?
The answer is one I learned through running. One, trust the process. Two, trust your own progress. The first time I ran a marathon, I truly had no idea if I would finish. The full distance of a marathon sounded near impossible: how was I possibly going to run 26.2 miles? Prior to that first race, I had never done more than 20 miles before. I told my friends and family not to come and cheer for me at the finish line. I said it was because I didn’t want to inconvenience them, but, in truth, it was because I didn’t want anyone to witness my embarrassment if I could not finish.
Race day brought a deluge of rain. At 5am, the sky was an abysmal black, the trees sobbing with water and the streets sloshing with puddles, like miniature oceans. All around me, runners shivered in their thin polyester shorts, bouncing on the balls of their feet like wind-up toys. I was so cold I could feel my toes losing sensation. Why had I actually paid money to torture myself, I wondered more than once.
But then the race began and, gradually, the rain tapered. Sensation returned to my toes as my blood warmed with adrenaline, raced through my veins. The first mile was choppy and awkward, the second mile not much better. And yet, by the third mile, my feet remembered what they were doing. My brain forgot today was special – after all, I was just running. Losing myself in the rhythmic pull of my own breaths, I began to enter the zone. The zone where thoughts fade. Where doubts settle. Where you trust your own feet against the ground, the distance you’re creating as you run, and run, and run. The creation is slow yet tangible, like the creation of a novel, a story. It teaches you to have faith. To keep going, not because you don’t have doubts, but because you know you can overcome them.
After what feels like both an eternity and the blink of an eye, you’re down to the last three miles. The last two. The last one – suddenly, people are cheering, people are everywhere. Sensory overload. The atmosphere is infectious, positively electric. Though your legs are starting to cramp, you’re animated by the energy. You match the other runners; you start to sprint, your paces lengthen, your steps fly higher and higher. Crossing the finish line, there is no other feeling like it. You could do anything, go anywhere. You just did.
You did it. You ran the race. You wrote the novel. It doesn’t matter what it is – you did the thing you thought you couldn’t do.
Since that first race, I’ve continued to run and the nerves have lessened, though they’ve never entirely dissipated. There are always some inevitable pre-race jitters, no matter how seasoned you are. For me, if I focus on the end result, I grow uneasy, I doubt myself. But if I fixate on the present, on what’s directly in front of me, on putting one foot in front of the other, then I can trust the process. I can trust my progress. Even if I can’t picture the finish line now. Even if it feels impossibly far away. I know that one day, someday, I’ll get there.
It is not that there is no pain along the way. In fact, pain is felt everywhere – in the balls of my feet, in the stitch in my side, in the dull throbbing of my head. Rather, I can choose to dwell on the pain, to get angry at it, to wish for its removal, or even to actually remove it (it’s simple – stop running). Or, I can choose to let go of the pain, to recognise that it won’t end me and to understand that I can move past it. By not centering on the discomfort, but rather, by letting it go, my thoughts can settle into a natural state of equilibrium, thinking simultaneously of everything and nothing at all.
Lately, I’ve found this ability to withstand discomfort translates into other aspects of my life. Freezing at an elevation of 4,500m in Peru, while hiking 15 miles a day. Lying on a gurney, heart pounding, waiting to be wheeled into an operating room. Even in writing a novel, sitting with the visceral discomfort as I write character arcs that veer a little too close to home. As someone who used to tear up every time I so much as stubbed my toe, I’m continually surprised by my ability to grow in this capacity. What I’ve learned is that it’s not the pain itself that can be minimised, but that I can choose to minimise my own reaction to it, to dissociate and let go of the discomfort, rather than hyper-fixating on it.
Much of any creative process involves letting go – of perfectionism, of the vision or idea that initially brought you to the page. Letting go even of your own hopes and dreams, which can often impede rather than propel the creative process. Running is all about letting go. In fact, what initially drew me to running was its lack of emphasis on technique and skill. Anyone can run. It doesn’t require superb hand-eye coordination, or swift mental calculation. Instead, it requires focus and release. Release of the moment, of the many moments to come, of all the pain and sweat and exhaustion this run will bring – because the satisfaction is worth it.
For me at least, no finished manuscript ends without tears. Even though it’s a joyful moment, it’s also bittersweet, even painful. The thing that once existed only in your head now lives in the world, separate from you. When readers open my book, it no longer belongs to me. It belongs to you, the reader. You take from the story what you will, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to let go and let the work speak for itself.
It’s time to go for another run.
There’s the famous baseball phrase: “It’s not over until it’s over.” My creative writing professor used to say something similar: “It’s not done until it is.” Isn’t there something wondrously satisfying about finishing a project you didn’t know that you could finish? In that grey doubt, in that space of unknown, you crossed the distance, and you found yourself on the other side. It is the incredulity and amazement of arrival that makes it so utterly sweet. You were in the present every step of the way, and now this is your present. You have arrived.
An Echo in the City by KX Song (Rock the Boat, £8.99) is available from guardianbookshop.com for £8.36
