My lady and I went out for a run this morning. We ran about 4.5 miles over some easy hills. I’ve been trail running for the better part of two decades now, so this was no problem. I wouldn’t exactly call 4.5 miles a long run, but it can still be taxing depending on the terrain. What helps me keep my mind focused on the run is breaking the course down into sections when I’m familiar with it, and just pushing myself to arrive at the next section, and the next one, and the next one. It is, however, a different story when I’m unfamiliar with the trail. I used to do 14 to 18 mile hauls with a friend, and we’d pick a new peak to run every time, so there was no taking things in chunks.
There was only the ever present drive to keep going.
Those runs were always the hardest, because I was never really sure when we’d arrive at the peak. Even the way back, when I had a cursory grasp of the trail, was simple matter, as the terrain was often technical, and my sense of distance completely thrown off due to the constant switchbacks. The only way to finish was to just keep moving.
The only way to keep moving was to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
It’s how I feel with the all the changes I’m making to marketing my business. Due to Substack’s public stance on allowing white supremacist and extremist groups to continue to proliferate on their platform, I made the decision to pull all my content and start over elsewhere. While I was only just starting out on Substack, this is still proving to be a grand amount of work, as I’m having to recreate all the pages and migrate all existing content over, update the links, and address the delays in publishing.
It’s a pain in the ass, but a necessary one.
Initially, I was overwhelmed by the scope of the work to the point where I began to avoid it. It was dreadful to consider, and I just didn’t want to do it. But running a business isn’t like taking a sick day; if the work doesn’t get done, I don’t get paid. So I had to buckle down and do the damn work. I looked at everything that needed to be done, wrote it all out, and then slowly began to address one single issue at a time.
Slow and steady, I put one foot in front of the other.
The work is far from finished, but it’s begun. I won’t have it all done in one night, but I don’t have to. The next stage in the development of my company will launch, and I’ll feel incredibly accomplished when it does. But as it stands, I have yet to reach the peak.
Anyway, here’s a poster of the gorgeous @milloux from her set H2O:
