I’ve been in the running doldrums.
Adrift without purpose or desire to begin again.
Not even a breath of it.
You know how it goes.
Manana, manana…
I’ve written before about how there’s always time for running, about how useful it is, about how it’s the place I find flow.
Yet still, when things got too much, running became a worry I didn’t really need.
I stopped seeing the value in it. I couldn’t figure out where I was going, if anywhere at all.
Sometimes life feels like an endless cycle of starting things, then re-starting them when they don’t meet your expectations. Or rather, when you don’t meet your expectations.
It’s a series of little wars, battles on multiple fronts against multiple selves, none of which you’re ever quite winning.
At one time, running was a release from this.
Until it became something else I felt I wasn’t doing properly.
The fact was, when it became purposeful and defined, it was less enjoyable.
Deciding to make it the subject of a newsletter didn’t help.
Maybe the best things are the things we don’t really need to do. I knew I needed to get back to running with no purpose.
I needed to get back to running without thinking about routes, or miles, or effort, or shoes, or nutrition, or races.
I needed to get back to a time when running seemed to be a tiny universe that manifested in every step forward and disappeared at my heel.
I started writing this two days ago, with the intention that it would spur me on, but still I wrestled with going for a run all day, and daylight was beginning to fade before I managed.
All I wanted was to step out of the door and not think about where I was going, how far or how fast. To be led by feel and feet only.
To take nothing and leave everything.
At the last moment I stripped off my watch and left it on the desk. Numbers and metrics were the antithesis of what I needed.
I ran to the top of a hill and back. It had changed since I was last there. The trod was burgeoned and overgrown with summer green in a way that was distinct enough, but needed remembering. Drawing on this familiarity felt good.
The climb was spattered with purples and whites of orchids amidst yellow flowers I had no name for and couldn’t be improved if I did. All floated in swaying greens.
My knees hurt. Bones in my feet ached to refamiliarise with old pressures. I walked some sections I would normally run, but there was no watch to make me feel I had to do anything else.
When I reached the summit I stopped for a few moments. A few more than I usually would. For the first time I noticed a flat rock that made an ideal seat. It seemed odd that I was noticing it for the first time, until I realised it was the wrong side of the trig. If I’d rested here in the past I’d have triggered the Strava segment for the descent.
There were lochs in three directions, mountains in all. I could picture nearly all their summits, and the mental bearing seemed to ground me.
Next morning I went to my favourite patch of woodland. Once again taking nothing, and this time shedding my shoes as well.
My feet needed instruction, taught how to move again.
At the start I felt bare and exposed, gingerly picking my way between the trees, but soon I was striding, anticipating the mossy patches, the deep, warmed mud, and the ribs of roots where feet must placed thoughtfully.
I swam across a lochan, then back again.
Not once did I think about how far I’d run or how long for.
I fell a bit in love with it all again, and I realised then that running didn’t need to be a battle.
So these are my first steps, again.
Wish me luck.
Nice Jamie.
Your piece reminded me why I love running with my dog: he lifts my gaze, gives me someone to talk to and sometimes make comments too, someone to think out loud to. All of it adds to an increase in awareness of where I am, a willingness to go ‘over there’.