One of the main questions writers and authors are asked is: “Where do you get your ideas from?”.

The hope is that there will be some sort of magical answer. “All you have to do is a series of ten push-ups before you go to sleep at night, and whammo, the ideas just flow!”.

Maybe this isn’t such a silly thing to say. Have you ever considered the role of exercise in sucking those ideas from the sludge in your brain?

I came across a post by Jim about Running and Writing
And suddenly, I was taken back to my running days. With a pang, I realised that since I had stopped running – because of a troublesome knee – my ideas for stories had returned to the sludge in my brain.

Now you’d think that any sort of exercise would help with creativity. Increasing blood flow, releasing endorphines – isnt that enough to get the fingers pounding on the keyboard?

Not from where I stand. When I had to give up running, of course I went back to cycling. I just can’t be a sloth anymore – that was in my former life. But cycling doesn’t seem to have the same effect on my creativity as running did.

My theory for this is that your heart rate during a running session is fairly high – about eighty-five percent of your max. But in cycling, unless you’re really pushing it, your heart rate barely gets above seventy percent of your max.

Since reading Jim’s post, I feel on the verge of a big decision. Having just done a huge ride at a major event in Melbourne called “Around the Bay in A Day” where I rode 220kms in one day, my cycling career has fizzled out. Shock, horror, this isn’t me! What’s going on? Am I really going to fall into the slothful state that I detest?

Somehow I don’t think so. I actually got on my bike this morning for the first time in three weeks, and felt good.

But it’s not enough. I want the ideas! So maybe I’ll try the running again, but at a slower pace, and maybe less often. Just enough to get those stubborn ideas out of the sludge. I need those ideas, and I need them now!