On hiatus

Matt Lindner
Jul 28, 2017 · 4 min read

If you’ve been paying attention to my work over the past several years, you may have noticed something different about 2017.

I haven’t had many freelance bylines. A handful of bylines for the Trib in the early part of this year, Cubs Convention for RedEye in January, and a single piece for The Daily Beast in the spring. Since more or less April though, nothing. This is the longest stretch I’ve gone since 2010 without taking on a side project.

There’s a reason for that — With the marathon coming up in October, I quietly made the decision just before training started to intensify that I needed to take a step back and focus more on my health and my training rather than on my career.

For more or less my entire adult life, my career has been my life, my life has been my career, and that’s been that.

Ever since I moved back to Chicago from Iowa seven plus years ago, the workload has more or less been nonstop. Work whatever office job I’m doing during normal business hours, freelance during my remaining waking hours, and if I’ve got time, take care of the rest of the most basic functions required of being an adult.

So it goes. Busy meant money but more importantly, those outlets were paying me to have fun and write about having fun. From changing lightbulbs on top of the Sears Tower to covering two straight Cubs playoff runs to participating in a poutine eating contest (I didn’t finish, for the record) to interviewing some of the entrepreneurs that are changing the world as part of Chicago’s startup scene, my freelance work is what kept me sane and allowed me to flex my creative muscles.

I’ve been lucky. Those 60 hour weeks have paid off in the forms of bylines with RedEye, the Chicago Tribune, ESPN, and the Chicago Sun-Times among others. Given that I moved to Chicago as a local TV news washout, the career I’ve enjoyed since coming back to my hometown has far exceeded even my own wildest expectations.

Things change though.

In November, as many of you are well aware of and some of you are probably sick of hearing about, I decided I was going to run the Chicago Marathon. Initially, the plan was to keep up my hectic schedule, to keep pitching editors and burning the midnight oil writing stories and then bouncing back in time for the early morning distance runs while in the process fundraising for Open Heart Magic, the charity that I’m running for which helps kids in hospitals learn magic tricks.

Then, two things happened. First, RedEye, which had been my primary freelance home for the past five years, announced earlier this year that it was going to become a weekly newspaper and was no longer going to have a sports section. As someone who primarily contributed to said sports section, that wasn’t good news, but I still had the Tribune and other potential outlets to fall back on.

As March turned into April, April turned into May, May turned into June and the mileage started ramping up. I also noticed something else — I didn’t have nearly the amount of energy or free time that I thought I was going to have to devote to my side projects anymore.

Something had to give. So, quietly, I pulled back on my side projects. I didn’t have any assignments outstanding, so it wasn’t like I was letting any of my editors down, I just stopped pitching story ideas and actively seeking out freelance work. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write. I absolutely did and still do, it was just that, for the first time in my adult life, I was letting life get in the way. I still have my full-time job, so it’s not like I’ve stopped writing for a living entirely, I’ve just put my passion projects off to the side for a little bit.

While I enjoyed my nonstop, hectic schedule over the past seven years, I’ve also learned something about the past seven months — I’m genuinely enjoying training for a marathon. I’m down a jean size and even the slimmer jeans are starting to feel loose on me, which is incredible. I ran a half marathon and a 5k on back to back days earlier this month, something I never in a million years thought I’d do. I’ve also raised nearly $2,000 so far to help kids in hospitals, so me running four days a week is going to have a tangible impact on the world beyond myself.

Eventually I am planning on getting back into the 60+ hour a week schedule that I worked prior to the Marathon, and I very much hope my career will be there waiting for me to resume it after the Marathon on October 8th. Even if it’s not though, the lifestyle changes that have come about as a result of getting into running again have made everything worth it. I’m happier, I’ve got more energy, and I’m in better physical shape right now than I have been since I was in college.

That, to me, makes the past seven and a half months more than worth it.

To learn more about Open Heart Magic, which has more than 120 volunteers that go around to Chicago hospitals and teach kids how to do magic tricks and is the charity that I’m running the Chicago Marathon for, please click here and consider donating.

Matt Lindner

Written by

Chicago-based freelance writer as seen in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, RedEye, ESPN.com, and others. Bourbon and pajama pant enthusiast.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade