Just Running
I started running after I turned 38. Not away from. Not to. Just running.
Till then there was no real physical activity that I could proclaim to be part of my cardiovascular fitness regime, save the walks from wherever I was to the nearest smoking corner!
It did not begin as any sort of meditative shelter that would cocoon my over stressed brain and provide it the rest that it was sub consciously seeking. That it ended up doing exactly that is what, I believe, they call collateral damage!
I did not just wake up one morning and hit the roads or the treadmill. There was, at first, a realisation that my girth had stopped threatening to become my most prominent physical attribute. It already was.
And whilst I’ve always believed in loving yourself for who you are, I wasn’t really head over heels at the time. There was also the realisation that the big 40 was no longer a distant eventuality. It was beginning to resemble the blinding headlights of a fast approaching goods carrier on a freeway. Incidentally, things weren’t really peachy at the professional front either. The rant on that one is somewhere here.
It was the cliched and proverbial happenstance of things falling into place. I renewed my vows with my early morning alarm tone, the snooze button falling short of favour, and started looking forward to its melodious accentuations.
And so began the 4 am walks. Out on the roads. Beneath the open skies. Brisk walks. Intended. Well, as brisk as I could manage at the time. It was, however, better than sitting on my ass whilst the rock did its thing around the big fire ball.
It had to be that early for two reasons. The important one was wanting to be back before the family was up and about, especially my son. The brief time I’d spend with him before he was off for school has always been an important part of my day. The not so important one was to avoid bumping into people. I thought they’d find an out of shape me a funny and ridiculous sight. I’ve realised over time I was wrong. I was giving myself far too much credit. People have far better or worse but certainly more important things on their minds. The realisation was liberating.
Over the next few months as I put one foot in front of the other, an hour to begin with and subsequently a couple of hours a day, I lost some weight. The briskness in my walks started to give the word its intended meaning. I guess excess baggage has this thing of slowing you down. Lose some and you gain so much.
Another couple of months and my legs were aching, protesting — to be pushed. They were now used to walking fair distances at a stretch and barely feeling alive. I’m glad I did what anyone should when that happens — give in to the internal unrest and challenge status quo.
I started running. Short distances at first. The walk, run, walk. Extra minutes and distance being added every successive week. And surprisingly, they began adding up. There were good days and bad but each was adding to my ability to quicken the pace and increase the distance. Not really an epiphany but then I seemed to have forgotten the inevitability of what follows when you do something over and over again. You get better. I believe it was Aristotle who said, “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.”
Now, whilst all this was happening at a physical level, there was something else going on up there. When you’re on your own for an hour or two, out on the roads, with minimal activity around you, the mind does what it’s been built to do unless you find a way to control it — it wanders. Sometimes it goes to places nice, other times not so much. I dabbled with music for a bit. However, I soon figured it was not meant to be. My brain was adamant on talking to itself and music was only adding to the cacophony. I tried controlling my thoughts and the struggle seemed to tire me more than my physical exertions. I stopped fighting and discovered that Newton’s third law is not just Physics. The mind stopped fighting as well.
What also helped was that by this time in my mid-life adventure of long distance running, I’d started reaching a point in my runs where I could not quite continue unless I deliberately focused on that which is taken for granted most — breathing.
4–5 kms into the run and all my being was required to just breathe right for the remaining part of the run. From that point onwards, the mind is completely blank. For all the physical activity that it’s supporting, it’s surprisingly at a complete state of rest.
Step after step, breath after breath of an awake yet thoughtless mind. Resting, rejuvenating. I’ve now begun to crave this refreshing, stimulating, revitalising state of being.
I started running a couple of years back. Not away from. Not to. Just running.
But it’s helped me cover some distance between where I was and where I want to be.
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