About one of the most painfully life-changing things I’ve ever done is to take up marathoning. In the end, plagued by a varied array of injuries, after running four misery-riddled races, I opted for shorter distances. I still go running a few miles here and there, during which I manage to clear my head and even ponder a few ideas in between all the huffing and puffing. The other day I got this idea: let’s run down through what marathoning taught be about life in general and writing in particular.

The obvious one: marathoning will take time and a lot of work

We lead lives that often seek the quickest outcomes. Yeah, the microwave thing. Upload it and download it faster and sooner. Let me write tell you in 140 characters or less because I haven’t the time to tell you more. Better yet, here’s a selfie? Get it? I’m sharing myself with you.

Enough of that. You know where this is going. Life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes you have to run for a long time and spend a lot of energy without even having a good idea of where the finish line lies. Oh, someone knows. But you don’t. In fact, the longer you run and the more exhausted you become, the more your mind may confuse your current location and your final destination. You want to get there, but right now, here on this piece of hot pavement, the only things you can think about — the only things that seem to matter — are staying upright and taking the next step.

You wish you could press the Send button and have yourself appear at the finish line. But that’s not how it works. It will take time and more painful effort.

It’s not about the running

What? You put in all the hard work, dedicate all that time, suffer and sweat your heart out, and it’s not about running a marathon? I won’t guess as to why other people want to go through a marathon experience. But there it is, in that last word, the suggestion of why someone with no chance to set a course record nonetheless sacrifice so much to set foot on that course and push themselves so hard to complete it. Experience.

You want to know you were out there, giving it your all, and you want to do it because you experience something inside you as you do it. Call it the drive to achieve something difficult, to overcome a challenge. Call it the search for significance. Or convince yourself you did it for the endorphins and the social time it gave you. Whatever. You’re not just running a marathon. You’re looking for inspiration. Maybe you’re even looking at inspiring others to aspire for more than a daily commute and some couch time in front of the TV.

No matter the length of the distance, it gets shorter with each step

You’ll get there. So long as you’ve prepared and so long as health remains on your bones, you’ll arrive. It may not be on your terms. It may not be as quick as you’d prefer, but so long as you take a step, and the next, and the one after that, the finish line will appear. You will turn a corner and look up a hill and see it just a couple of blocks away. And though it hurts, you know you’ll get there. Just like you got to the corner. One step at a time.

Dealing with the wall

You’ve heard about it. Allegedly, most people hit it somewhere between mile 18 and 20. Heartbreak hill, they call it in Boston. It’s the place where your body, depleted of all those wonderful chemicals that make it go, tells you it’s time to stop. I never hit this wall. No, mine came much earlier, sometimes at mile 10, or a couple of miles later. In one marathon it hit me at mile 1, when in freezing weather my calves seized up. In every case, I did the one step thing. That nasty frozen calves race? I actually did the second half faster than the first.

Sometimes you bust through it. Sometimes you climb it. Sometimes you crawl around it. Sometimes (my personal favorite, not!) you carry it with you all the way to the finish line. What it will not do is stop you.

Though it may seem a waste of time, preparation will lead to success

Why run all those 4-8 milers mid-week? Why death-march your way through those long runs on the weekend? None of them are the actual race. None of them earn you a medal. And what about the ones that don’t turn out well? What about the ones you have to cut short because you’re hurt, or because your body won’t give you any more?

None of them go to waste. All of them, failures and successes alike, build the foundation upon which you will do your thing on race day. You keep doing those runs because you know that without them you’ll die.

Some people run like gazelles, but you don’t have to

Or to put it another way, elephants get there, too. It may not look pretty, it may not seem graceful nor employ a great deal of speed. But they get there.

Don’t let people judge you on style points or the manner of your running. If you stick it out to cross the finish line, even a couple of hours after they do, that’s OK. You crossed it. You got it done. No, you didn’t stand there with the big oversized prize money check, and you didn’t win the Mercedes, but you traversed — get this — the same distance. In fact, by running slower and staying on the course longer, you probably dealt with the worst of it, like that noontime heat. In a way, you earned that finish line much more than the gazelles, so take that with you as you hobble home.

Count your blessings, namely that you can run in the first place

During my marathoning days, and as a spectator to several marathons, I’ve also had the opportunity to see how those who can’t use their legs nonetheless run the race. Seeing them take on that course reminded me of one thing. As much as I may be hurting, I should remain thankful that I can run. As intense as my struggle may feel, they wrestle and grapple in ways I can’t imagine.

What does all that have to do with life or writing?

I could spell it out, but that would be telling. Instead, I’ll share a personal anecdote.

The other day I was reviewing my Amazon sales — squinting really hard because they’re that hard to spot! — wondering what the heck is happening to my writing, and what it all means for my life. A thought stopped me short of dropping into full pity-me mode: I’ve only been at this for 3 months! And I want to hit it big already, of course, because you know, it should be happening by now.

Then I took a deep breath and said, one more step.