BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… RAIN, SUN, SWEAT. The heat waned marginally as the sun slowed to the horizon. Another day almost done, another mile, another thought, another schedule. Slowly, the crazy and swirling thoughts and voices past and present began to fade. The late afternoon sun might have dropped the temperature, but not the humidity. End of July, beginning of another turn in the grand wheel of the year and a glimmer of hope in the changing season. Tomorrow the overcast sky will look like autumn, although it will only be August.

But for the moment, my life in measured in a handful of minutes. One minute running, one minute recovery, one minute running…. Minutes are longer now, and suddenly much shorter. The path ahead looks long and my breath is getting more shallow. Day two of my running program and lots of thoughts revolve in my head; thoughts now increasingly left on the trail. I like to set subroutines in my mind, hopefully to problem solve things while I work at other things. And there’s plenty to work on —

StateoftheOzarks is in mid-season. Three months of Farmers Markets, now moved to Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings at Vintage Paris Coffee on Historic Highway 165 between College of the Ozarks and Table Rock Dam, have passed. Three months to go. We will continue the market season through October. StateoftheOzarks Fest — our eighth annual big festival — is September 13. And we have three more Art Walk Markets to put together, as well as many more words to write. Writers Artists Night is set for November 1 this year. StateoftheOzarks couldn’t do all this without our Member Community, but member communities need management, too. My days have lengthened again, starting around 6AM and concluding somewhere near midnight far too often this time of year. My gym time has been shortened but the work these days is often physical. I’ve lost weight, increased endurance. I feel better, except for the fatigue. It’s honest work.

Enter Erin Watson, mom of Kelby Watson, an energetic young man who creates digital art. Kelby showcases at Farmers Market. His mom Erin is a running coach. Now, thanks to our conversations at Market, she is my running coach. While I may be the proud owner of a multi-week program to (hopefully) get me back to running in the real world, I’ve not read it all. Instead, I just read the next day’s training and focus on that, which somehow helps. In a world of planning and words and ideas and noise, there’s something simple about simple instructions, simple execution. I lace up my worn running shoes one more time, again.

“What are you training for?” The question is annoying. I don’t need a reason to better myself, other than bettering myself. We are strangely short-sighted, apparently as a society. Apparently we need upcoming competitions, meets, 5ks, things on a calendar, in order to do the one thing that should be natural: to become a better version of ourselves. I’m neurotic enough to better myself through pain and stress and difficulty without the added stress of some arbitrary event. My training is an escape from event-focused thinking, not a place for event-focused thinking. I don’t need more stress.

The recent rain is still on the air and my sprints have slowed on the upward hill, hamstrings and calves burning. I can feel myself getting winded, but the endurance is still there, still there deep down. The Twisters soundtrack is helping. I have an unreasonable appreciation for Lainey Wilson, Luke Combs, Jelly Roll. A year ago, I was fighting for all I had, hoping for better days. This soundtrack got me through another mile back then, too. The same seems to be working on the trail. One more minute run, one minute recovery, one minute run….

The sun dips beyond the western clouds. A rain squall is passing over the mountains to the North. The wind whips over the hill, beating the American flag at the school house, causing the flag to pop in the breeze. A fog rises from the pavement, testament to the true heat of the afternoon. Time for my pushups, 72 this time. Repetitions in sets of 10 are boring. The physical strain is palpable. Guys my age are supposed to be settling comfortably into middle age where they can watch their increasingly widening middle from the comfort of their favorite chair. The idea is foreign to me. I’m just now hitting my stride, becoming the man I wanted to be when I was a green, twitchy kid. Quitting now would be an outrage, as well as weakness.

I grew up in the traditions of farmers, of blue collar men, but in the shadow of academia and white collar work. Surrounded by the conversations of the intellectual elite, I understood the importance of ideas, of the profound need to know how the world worked. But I was equally drawn to the hardworking examples of my grandpa — cowboy, farmer, carpenter — and my grandma, who hunted squirrels with a .22, not a shotgun, because a scatter gun would spoil the meat and nobody was a better shot than she, anyway. There’s an earned intelligence in survival, in the honor of true hard work. I supplement — read, pay back — to my ancestors with real sweat whenever I can, and the farmers market work is providing that in spades. But too much of my day job still puts me in meetings, and in an air conditioned office, whiling away at the computer.

There are, forever, two paths before us and we must ever face the choosing. The air on the trail is still wet, as now am I, drenched from the run, the pushups, the humidity. The voices have quieted, those voices from a hundred fragments of schedule and half-remembered notes. There is quiet, yes, but also gratitude. Gratitude in the setting sun, in work well done, the honesty of hard work, and honor in the effort. Such is far better than the alternative — a world of self-entitlement, of self-congratulation, of echo chambers and the internal uneasiness such poor fruit produces. I believe I will sleep well tonight.

— Joshua Heston, editor-in-chief, StateoftheOzarks

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