No, really. Running is not like writing.

Anyone blogging about running (a) blogs and (b) runs. By definition. This has sadly inevitable consequences. One day, in the latter stages of a run and craving both dopamine and an idea for their next blog, they hit on the surprising similarities between running and writing.
They even hit on a title pretty fast. Something like ‘Ten ways writing is like running’ to maximise click-throughs.
Genius. Dopamine and blog post flood their brain. Keep running, they think, and you’ll have this banged out before the grit settles at the bottom of the post-run kale smoothie you can never bring yourself to finish:
“So the whole concept will be ‘a writer who runs… wtf?’ and there’s the hook because we all know writers would prefer to be brains in a jar telepathically sending their words to a manual typewriter so it’s profound and surprising and can kick off with that quote about it being enjoyable to have written but not to write probably Dorothy Parker but google it just as it’s enjoyable to have run but not to actually be running and riff on it from there and drop in pearls like it being a bit of a slog and you have to keep your own pace ow ow ow shin splints.”
Except, no. Ssshhh. Please.
This might all sound profound in your head as you mentally rake through your sweat-soaked lycra gusset of blog post ideas but it’s very much not new. Even that neckbeard indie-rock songwriter on your ‘running’ playlist got their first. Why do you think the idea popped into your head anyway?
Another giveaway should be the sheer volume of quotes linking exercise and writing you in the first three pages of google search results, including that ‘mens sana mens corporea’ line from the Romans.
Also the Greeks invented the Olympics.
Then there’s Mura-fucking-kami. I haven’t read what he talks about when he talks about running but I assume it’s the same overwrought ‘profundity is in the details’ crap he types about when he writes.
And Malcolm Gladwell; with whom I’m not angry, I’m disappointed. Apparently Don Delillo and Joyce Carol Oates ran too, but I had no idea before I started searching for competitors for my potential running blog. This is because they never blogged about running, and they were better writers. Correlation isn’t causation, but, you know, it’s something.
During that same bit of market research, I also noticed that every last one of the humblebragging running writers had some vomit inducingly inspirational book on a download link, generally called something like ‘From J’s to K’s: how swapping hashish for Asics* saved my life’. (Subtitle: ‘I fucking amaze even myself’).
Also, there are loads of nice stock photos of backlit runners looking fit in lycra. Of course they do. They have an intense relationship with exercise, and probably an emetic relationship with food and a cathartic relationshp with self harm.
I know why running blogs work this way. Inspirational and positive posts make readers feel good so they like/follow/whatever, and each one can be monetized in some micropayment way and another pdf or two.
But… really… the main running motivation I get from this uplifting inspirationalism is to the nearest sick bag.
But then I’m British. We’re uneasy with joy. We’d prefer to read a blog about how running will put up interest rates, encourage illegal immigration, and create a tikka masala shortage, accompanied by a stock photo of a fat bloke having his face stamped into a puddle by a $500 Asic trainer. Schadenfreude sooths us — just ask any Brit about the 1966 World Cup.
There’s only one reason writing and running are similar: they’re both for people with their heads up their arses. I write, and now — shoot me — I run. Draw your own conclusions.
* Asics are expensive running trainers. So glad you didn’t know that.
