Most mornings this spring have begun the same way: early, quiet, and outside.

Back in February, when I started marathon training again, the world was still frozen. The sun came up late. The paths around the lakes were cold and gray, and some mornings the only real task was persuading myself to get out the door. Now it is mid-May, and those same mornings feel entirely different. The light comes earlier. The trees are full again. The lakes are alive with ducks, swans, beavers, bunnies, and the steady return of everything that looked dormant just a few months ago.

That slow change in the world has been one of the gifts of this season, especially because progress in other parts of my life has felt slower than I would prefer.

Slow Progress on the Manuscript

I have now completed three chapters of my sixth novel, and I’m currently working on chapter four.

That is not as much progress as I had hoped to make by mid-May. A large part of the reason is simple: my work as a publisher and editor at History Through Fiction continues to grow. That is a good problem to have. The press is expanding, the work is meaningful, and more people are trusting me with their writing and their stories. But meaningful work still takes time, and much of the time I might otherwise have spent drafting has gone into helping History Through Fiction meet that growing demand.

There is another reason progress has been slow, and this one was entirely my own doing.

Why I Signed Up for Another Race

Back in February, in what may fairly be called a foolhardy moment, I decided to sign up for another marathon.

I have run fifteen marathons in my life. But the more recent ones were especially difficult because of advanced arthritis in my right hip. In December 2024, I had a full right hip replacement. The recovery went remarkably well, and by September 2025 I had completed a half-marathon. That success made it very easy to believe another full marathon might also be within reach.

What I am learning now is that recovery and ambition are not quite the same thing.

Real hip or fake hip, marathon training is a major commitment. I have managed to run four or five times a week, but I am also finding that my body may no longer be interested in the full 26.2 miles. Whenever I run more than twelve miles at once, or more than thirty-five miles in a week, I start feeling pain in my leg.

So the plan has changed. I’m still going to Norway for the Midnight Sun Marathon on June 20, but I will be running the half-marathon instead. Given where I was not so long ago, that still feels like a small miracle.

What Challenge Gives Me

What matters most to me in all of this is not really the race distance. It is the reminder that there is still value in choosing difficult things.

It would be easy to say I don’t have time. It would be easy to look at my hip as a disability rather than an ability. It would be easy to decide that, given the demands of work and the slow pace of the manuscript, I should conserve my energy and avoid one more challenge.

And yes, discretion matters. I do not mean that every limit should be ignored or that stubbornness is always wisdom. But I also know that I gain something important by continuing to test myself and by saying yes to experiences that ask more of me.

Most days I get up at 5:00 AM to run. That means I get to watch the world change a little at a time. I get snowstorms and rainstorms, gray skies and orange skies, blue skies and cold wind off the lakes. I get solitude. I get audiobooks. I get the ordinary pleasure of using my lungs, strengthening my heart, and coming home tired enough to enjoy a long hot shower and a day honestly earned.

I also get the small absurd privileges that belong to hard effort: the satisfaction of being exhausted, the pleasure of rest that actually feels deserved, and the freedom to enjoy more cookies and ice cream than good judgment would normally recommend.

None of this may be the easiest choice for my current lifestyle, and it may not be the smartest choice for my hip if judged by efficiency alone. But for a few months, at least, it gives me a chance to really live.

Bringing That Perspective Back to the Novel

That matters for the writing, too.

Even though the manuscript is moving more slowly than I hoped, it is still moving. Three chapters are done. Chapter four is underway. And I suspect some part of what running gives me—discipline, humility, perspective, and a renewed awareness of what it means to live inside a body moving through the world—finds its way back onto the page.

I do not always want life to be optimized. I do not always want to choose only the practical thing, the safe thing, or the efficient thing. Sometimes a demanding season can also be a meaningful one. Sometimes the challenge itself is part of what keeps the days from flattening into routine.

When the race is over, I will have more time again. That thought alone is encouraging. I’m looking forward to giving more of myself to chapter four and to the chapters that follow. But I don’t regret this season for being full. If anything, I’m grateful for the reminder that progress is not always measured only in pages.

Sometimes it is measured in endurance. Sometimes in recovery. Sometimes in the willingness to keep choosing a difficult road because it still opens the world a little wider.

And for now, that feels like progress too.