Four
SEPTEMBER 19, 2005 • TOKYO
Most of What I Know About Writing Fiction I Learned by
Running Every Day
On September 10 I bid farewell to Kauai and returned to Japan for a two-week stay. Now I’m
commuting by car between my office studio in Tokyo and my home in Kanagawa Prefecture. I still
keep up my running, but since I haven’t been back in Japan for a while there’s lots of work waiting to
keep me busy, and people to meet. And I have to take care of each and every job. I can’t run as freely
as I did in August. Instead, when I can grab some free time, I’m trying to run long distances. Since
I’ve been back, I’ve run thirteen miles twice, and nineteen miles once. So I’ve been able, barely, to
keep up my quota of averaging six miles per day.
I’ve also been intentionally training on hills. Near my house is a nice series of slopes with an
elevation change equivalent to about a five- or six-story building, and on one run I rounded this loop
twenty-one times. This took me an hour and forty-five minutes. It was a terribly muggy day, and it
wore me out. The New York City Marathon is a generally flat course, but it goes over seven bridges,
most of which are suspension bridges, so the middle sections slope up. I’ve run the NYC Marathon
three times now, and those gradual ups and downs always get my legs more than I expect.
The final leg of this marathon is in Central Park, and right after the park entrance there are some
sharp changes in elevation that always slow me down. When I’m out for a morning jog in Central
Park, they’re just gentle slopes that never give me any trouble, but in the final leg of the marathon,
they’re like a wall standing there in front of the runner. They mercilessly wrest away from you the last
drop of energy you’ve been saving up. The finish line’s close , I always tell myself, but by this time
I’m running on sheer willpower, and the finish line doesn’t seem to get any closer. I’m thirsty, but my
stomach doesn’t want any more water. This is the point where my legs start to scream.
I’m pretty good at running up slopes, and usually I like a course that has slopes since that’s where I
can pass other runners. But when it comes to the slopes in Central Park, I’m totally beat. This time I
want to enjoy, relatively, the last couple of miles, give them all I’ve got, and break the tape with a
smile on my face. That’s one of my goals this time around.
The total amount of running I’m doing might be going down, but at least I’m following one of my
basic rules for training: I never take two days off in a row. Muscles are like work animals that are
quick on the uptake. If you carefully increase the load, step by step, they learn to take it. As long as
you explain your expectations to them by actually showing them examples of the amount of work they
have to endure, your muscles will comply and gradually get stronger. It doesn’t happen overnight, of