This morning was the start of my switch back to mornings for running and exercising. I realize I shouldn’t say that so fast after just one successful morning, but I have enlisted the help of a friend to meet me each morning. Hopefully the accountability will compensate for the lack of habit at this point.

Running in the morning feels great. It’s dark and peaceful and no one is up but the birds and some other fellow runners. Not to mention the sense of accomplishment you already have by the time you start the rest of your day.

As we were running today, I told my friend how I was not a runner at all growing up. I never thought I could run and so I never really tried. It wasn’t until my freshman year in college that I tried running more than a mile and was surprised that I didn’t keel over right there on the spot. Ever since then I have loved running and have made it an important part of my life. I actually run enough to consider myself a runner, a thought that would have been laughable had you known me in high school.

So as I was telling the story of my running beginnings, I started to think about how I treat other things like I used to treat running. There are a number of things that I don’t consider myself good enough to do and so I don’t attempt them much. Or I will only attempt them with moderate levels of risk, which doesn’t really help me get past the hump of feeling like I am proficient at it.

At the top of the list of those things I don’t do is Writing. I don’t consider myself a writer. I have never written much and have never really tried very hard to regularly write anything that could be viewed publicly. But I realize this is really no different than my running. I have a pretty good feeling that if I keep writing regularly (more than a blog post once every two months), then I won’t keel over. Maybe I’ll even get to be good enough that people will start reading what I write. Maybe I’ll get even better that some people will stop reading.

So let’s see if I can start two good things in one day. I have a friend to keep me getting up in the morning and I have the the RSS readers of about four people scattered throughout the Midwest to keep me going here. What’s the worst that could happen?