What running teaches me about writing. And vice versa.

You will have good days. And you will have bad days.
Part of being a writer is learning to accept the occasional duke-it-out session with a blank piece of paper and a deadline. And bad days of running? They’re always followed by days with fewer hills and longer flat stretches.

No matter how far away you go, come back to where you started.
You can brainstorm all you want, but the creative brief is there for a reason. In the end, you land back on it. Just like you never really run away completely because the finish line is always your front door.

Study people who are better at it than you are.
You are never finished growing as a writer or a runner. Keep pushing yourself. Aspire to be like someone who inspires you. Adopt some of their habits. Write 100 headlines for every one you need if you must. Smart people say it works. So try it.

Take breaks.
Your mind needs to rest. To stew on an idea and to come up with a better one. And your body? Those scars on your knees are there for a reason. Don’t push it too hard. Let it rebuild.

Speed only matters sometimes.
Writing is not a race. And running is only a race when you are actually racing. Take time to be really great at both.

Someone is always going to beat you.
That award isn’t always going to go to you. And you will never, ever, win a road race. So, dig deep and make sure that you really love doing what you are doing. And if you do, winning won’t matter as much as you thought it did.

Spandex is always a bad idea.
Avoid it on the trail. Or in the office.

Jessi Hamilton's favorite things include words and ideas, bacon and new running shoes. She is currently a senior copywriter at Kuhn & Wittenborn. Before that she was at AdFarm and Barkley, before that VML. And before that, Jessi waded through the waters of journalism. She also blogs, runs half marathons and writes poems and personal essays that make her mom cry.