what running taught me about art

The great thing about running is that… you don’t have to do it. But same can be said for literally anything. You don’t have to make art, you don’t have to post on social media, you don’t have to make money. You don’t. You could opt out of capitalism and live off the grid or whatever they call it these day. There is nothing in this world that you “HAVE” to do.

But there are a lot things that you “CAN” do to make your life, your life.

For me, art is a big part of my life. I love consuming art, whether it’s music, movies, in a gallery, on Instagram, craft shows, through kids books. I love it all and I’m loving it more and more. I’m not saying I’m a huge art nerd and know all about the history yada yada, but when I see something I like, I like that I like it… does that make sense?

Making art on the other hand… it’s really a discipline. You hear a lot of stories of artists who can’t help but make music or paint, and that’s great for them, they need that as an outlet, for me however I am such a procrastinator when it comes to creating for myself. It’s probably a combination of not being passionate about the art and the doom and gloom of being a starving artist always looming over every move you make.

And THIS is where running comes in.

When I first got married in 2017, my husband and I decided it would be a great idea to start running together. We, and by we I mean he, would wake up at 6 and literally nag me until 7 to get up for a run. Mind you this was in Perth, so in the summer by 7.30 it’s already 30 degrees. It’s so hot and the sun is blaring at you, there was not much scenery in our suburb so it was a DRAG to do these runs. The route I did was only 2km, but it was so difficult for me to run the whole way. I would stop and walk many times in that 2k, wishing I could just be at home on the couch. Eventually we stopped running as the weather heated up more.

It wasn’t until we moved to Melbourne (the first time) in 2021 that we decided to try run again. We were living in a nice suburb with lots of greenery, the temperature was much more tolerable for running all year round and so there wasn’t really an excuse for it.

I started slow, just doing 1 street loops, then eventually 2 and then 3 and so on. I was doing pretty well with my running schedule doing about 1-3 runs a week. If you know the about The Tan, aka Royal Botanic Gardens, you know that this track is pretty famous. It’s 3.8km and all gravel. It overlooks the Yarra river for and it’s just a gorgeous route.

For about 3 months I was really wanting to try and run the whole loop, but there is a massive hill that is just a killer and I always end up walking half way through. Sigh, it’s always a bit of a disappointment especially if it’s the last bit of the loop. So for about 3 months I was trying to crack this 3.8k loop, I know it sound pretty dismal if you’re a running person, but you know what… whatever, and then one day… I found out I was pregnant.

This pregnancy news hit me real hard. I never planned on having kids, but then I thought, yea? Yeah?

I was struggling a lot with my art at this stage too, feeling like a failure, like nothing I create is good enough, you know the usual. So with this on top I felt like I would be… a parent not worth being proud of. So that hurt.

At the time I was working at a cafe and feeling pretty shit about myself to be honest. I wasn’t a successful artist, I wasn’t even a designer, I was just working at a cafe. So I remember very clearly, after work I had just been so fed up with how things have been going and how I hadn’t felt a sense of accomplishment for a long time and now that a baby is coming, I want to do things that they will make them proud. So after I finished a full shift, being on my feet for 8 hours, 6-ish weeks pregnant, I decided to go a run that f-ing track. I was determined to run the entire loop without stopping!

I drove to the gardens and drove around like twice trying to look for a free car park and lo and behold I find a spot right on the hill. The hill of deathhhhhh. I walked up to the track and decided to start from the top of the hill to make the journey easier? Maybe? Not sure if that was a sound strategy, but that’s what I did.

I started my run, and at the first kilometre marker I gave myself a little pat of the back, but after that, I was pep talking myself for the last 2.8 km. “You can do it. Just 500 m. Keep going till you see that post. Slow down, it’s ok to do it slow. C’mon c’mon. Your baby needs you. Do something. You have to finish.”

And as I was pep talking myself coming to the last 800m I see the it. Kill Hill. I struggled and struggled all the way up that hill and I’m pretty that even though I was running, people were walking faster than me.

It was brutal but when I finally made it to the top of the hill… it was magic.

I remember having such a strong sense of accomplishment that day, not being about to complete this loop for so long and then on whim deciding to run the entire thing after work while in my first trimester.

It was amazing.

Then I ran my first 5km, on a flat route, at 9 weeks before visiting home, and while in Perth I was still running 4km a couple times and really feeling good about myself.

I think I stopped running around the middle of my second trimester as I was starting the feel the weight in my tummy more. And I didn’t want baby to feel like she was in a bouncy castle all the time.

I didn’t get back into running until 6 months postpartum and that was pretty hard, but because I already at the knowledge that I could achieve a 5k at all, I was working towards doing that again.

Now baby is almost 2 years old and I’m running pretty regularly, trying to do 15km a week and working towards doing a half marathon next year.

So that’s my running background!

Now what has this story and running taught me about art. It’s taught me about patience, endurance and goal setting.

When I started running again in 2021, I couldn’t even run a full kilometre without taking a break. So I started really small. 1km. What was great about our neighbourhood was that, when I run to the main road, and towards the next street over and back in a loop that was exactly 1km. So I started out with 1km, then I added another street to the loop which made it 2km, then added another street 3km.

Adding on those extra km took like a month if not more before getting comfortable enough to add another. Now on a really good day, I am able to do 10km (not all the time, but it’s now possible for me).

So with my art I’ve started to learn how to be better at setting those smaller and achievable goals. Like instead of creating a new piece everyday, all I have to do is work on my business, any part of the business for a minimum of 10 minutes. And it doesn’t even have to be everyday, just most days.

When I am running, I am solely responsible for my own output. The goals I create need to be achievable by me and me alone. Getting x amount of clients is not achievable on my own because it takes another party to complete right? But sending out 100 cold emails is something that is achievable on my own.

I have learned that growth isn’t linear. When I take a break from running like when I’m on holiday or have really bad sickness, it takes a while to reestablish that baseline of comfort in my running, which I’m ok with. Life happens and when you have a family in the early days it’s hard to control how much energy you might have for the day or week. With my art, I have really good weeks and then really bad weeks, so I’m finding ways to combat the really bad weeks by metaphorically ‘taking a short walk instead of a long run’. That could be letting myself look instead of do. With my new Love and Peas project I take a lot of time just looking at photos and videos of plants, researching how the plant grows and how other people design their garden layout. And when I feel like I have soaked up enough visuals I can back into the run and reestablish that baseline.

I have learned how to break up a big goal into small tasks.

Like what I mentioned before, adding 1km at a time, that was because I wanted to achieve a 5km run. Like that’s obviously a thing to achieve when you start running right? So even though I was only doing 1k or 2k, I was always thinking, I WILL eventually get to 5k if i keep this up.

When I finally achieved that, I thought I WILL eventually get to 10k, but I need to hit 6, then 7, 8, 9 first.

With this YouTube I would LOVE to reach 1000 subscribers, but first I need to create videos. 5 videos, then 10, then 15 and so on. If people want to subscribe that is up to them, but I need to take these first steps in order to reach that longer goal. If I keep this up, I will hopefully eventually hit that goal and have 1000 lovely people watching my videos.

If you have ever run in your life, you will know that it’s 50% physicality and 50% mentality. Running kinda aimlessly is you constantly analysing if you are ok to go a bit further. “Can I run to that tree, can I do an extra 200 metres, can I run until Strava tells me I hit the magical number?”

You don’t think about anything else, no meal prepping, no gossip, no bad mouthing yourself. You just think about hitting the next mark and finishing the run.

So that’s also what I’m trying to do for myself in this business. More pow-wows less haranguing.

Focus on getting to the next mark and the long long long term goal for business and life.

I hope that you liked this video and I hope that you are all taking care of your art souls and well as your health souls, whatever that looks like for you. Pilates, if you can afford it, nice long walks, hardcore crossfit if that’s more your speed. Drink water, eat your greens. I’m not your mum so you don’t have to listen to me obviously.

Ok, till the next video. Bye!