While driving to Fresno for the California State Cross Country Championships last November, I came to a stunning realization: I enjoy coaching practices but I do not like coaching competitions.
This was not because the drive to Fresno is a tense five hours of lane-changes and stop-and-go traffic, even in the best of circumstances. It's also not because I am disinterested in my runners — if anything, this current training group is near and dear to my heart. And it's not because coaching competitions is a misnomer — if anything, less input from the coach is preferable on meet day.
I just came to the awareness that the previous 154 days of training were magical, an ebb and flow of fitness and communication that slowly made each runner a better version of themselves. I planned each workout, spent hours fussing with details about split times and mileage, and generally made myself miserable each and every day as this act of creation took shape. I worried when runners got sick, stayed out too late at homecoming, didn't replace their shoes every 350 miles, and didn't do the little things like eating, sleeping, and stretching. Judging the success or failure of those twenty-two weeks based on the very last day of the season is ludicrous.
A few years back I heard the saying "the process is the goal." I did not understand it at first, if only because it sounded heretical. How could the daily grind be more important than hoisting the championship trophy? I am fully aware that the journey is more important than the destination. But that's just travel, right?
Then I noticed the same thing in my writing. The daily process of printing out yesterday's pages, editing them out on the back porch with a sharpened pencil, incorporating those edits into the new book, then moving over into my office to write fresh pages makes me far happier than the moment a book is published. I used to wait eagerly for the day when a fresh box of new books landed on my doorstep. It's still wonderful holding that first edition in my hands, but now I save one for my office, a few for friends, and donate the rest to Friends of the Library. At the end of the day, it's just a book. The memories were made in the daily act of putting words on the page. That may sound romantic or creative, but it's grueling. There's no other way to say it.
I don't know what to call this new embrace of process. Not maturity. Not mindfulness. It's a practice, now that I think of it, one of those things that create their own reward through daily repetition. I love the grind and how it makes me feel focused and alive. I love watching the pages pile up, just like I love watching my runners get faster and stronger, day by day. Race day and publishing day are wonderful, but just a byproduct of the practice. The simple act of daily practice in coaching and writing is actually not a grind at all, but a refinement, sanding off the rough edges.
I like being Here. In the Now. Life is better when it's not tomorrows and yesterdays, but right now.