Couch to Crim

My city has a big event this weekend.   It is the 45th annual Crim race.  Well, It’s not just one race, but a whole festival of races, originally started by the Honorable Bobby Crim, former Michigan State Representative.

Thousands of runners converge on the city tonight and run through our neighborhood tomorrow morning - in a variety of races.  Those runners have likely participated in a variety of training programs.   Many of them are serious runners - elite champions who travel the world to run in races like this one.

Others were maybe less serious about training but might have tried at least a “Couch to 5k” program.  No matter the level of seriousness or commitment, certainly many developed their own customized version of a “Couch to Crim” program.

I am not a runner, but I have clocked in a few seasons as a sort-of-serious walker, with my own version of “couch to 5k” training - and actually brought home a medal for best in age bracket or some such honor.

There is however another arena where I have taken on a serious commitment.  Not a marathon, but a pretty daunting challenge - not running or walking, but writing - known as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where people around the globe crank out 50,000 words during the month of November.   

This is a serious writing commitment but is for only one month of the year, mind you.  I have recently begun gearing up to the big commitment ahead of time.  Instead of waiting until November to suddenly write 2000 words/day, I decided to start in October and write 500 words/day and then 1K the next week.  By the middle of October I could bump my goal up to 1500 words so that by the last week I actually hit 2K some days!

Start small.

Take little steps toward being more serious.

Build those habits.

What a great idea!

The advanced training served me well.  Not only did I build my writing muscles with ever-increasing word count goals, but it also gave me a chance to start brainstorming ideas I might actually write about that year.  I filled cyber pages with crazy rambling paragraphs and loads of bullet lists.  That way when I turned my calendar to November, I was already accustomed to making my word count goals.  And rather than coming to the blank page with an empty brain, I came with tons of ideas in my head and even more tucked away in that other document just waiting to spill out when I need reminders.  I could hit the ground running as they say - or hit the ground writing.  Eventually from those 12 years of doing NaNo, one of those 50,000-word documents actually became a real book last year!

NaNoWriMo has become part of a pattern for me. An excuse to pause every autumn and choose whether and how to bump up my writing goals.

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By the way, you can pick your own race event.  

Invent one if you need to.

Doesn’t need to be 10 miles - or even five miles.

Doesn’t need to be 5k - nor 50K.

(5 kilometers… or 50,000 words; get it?)

Your writing event doesn’t need to be NaNoWriMo.  

And it doesn’t need to have 50K words.

Or you could write those 50,000 words over a much longer period of time.

Because it is not about the event.  

The event is simply a tool to get you moving.

We think we train for the event, but maybe the event trains us.

Maybe the event provides the kick I need to get out there and get started.

Maybe the hype is what I need to motivate me to establish better habits.

To take incremental steps.

…

How about you, my friend?

What do you want to do?

How far do you want to be able to run or walk - or write?  

5k?  50K?

How many words could you crank out in a month?

In a day or a week?

What small goal could you start?

How will you bump it up next week or month?

What steps are you willing to take to move toward your goal?

You can design your own personal “Couch to 50K” training program.