Autumn looms… Every morning is a bit darker and colder than the last. So, as I hobbled out of bed for my 5 at 5 this morning, I was of course asking myself, “Why are you doing this again?”
The Running Deity was right there with an answer. Two, actually.
We live amid hills. This means that, if I run from home, I can either start with a mile of downhill and end with a long climb back up, or I can start with a mile of uphill, culminating in the Hill of Death, then run mostly downhill back to the base camp. If I’m feeling weary, I usually head downhill and push the pain to the back end of the run. But last night I had resolved to run the uphill-first route, and, miraculously, I stuck to it this morning. I’m glad I did.
Less than a mile into the run there is a point where the road flattens just a bit (the Hill of Death hides just around the corner), and the trees open up on the right side of the road to expose a wonderful view that widens onto a horse pasture, with a few small mountains rising up in the background. This morning, the field and woods behind it were darkened and the range behind rose through a thin layer of fog. The sky had the pink glow it gets just before a brilliant sunrise. My description hardly does the beauty of the moment justice; it was like a Monet painting (but maybe that was just because I was not wearing my glasses). Thankfully, I had along my phone and snapped a picture (which also of course does not do it justice).
And so we have reason Number One for why I run. Here in Vermont, rare is the solitary morning run that is not visited by some startling moment of beauty, or an experience of something as new which I have run past a hundred times before. For me, running is more than just the testing of my physical boundaries or a way to keep in shape. That’s the part that’s given. Running forces me to step outside the salt mine of the daily grind, to interact with and benefit from the road, the trees, the air.
But, of course, for every stunning view, there is a karmic Hill of Death right around the corner…
Which brings me to reason Number Two.
When I sat down at my desk this morning and opened up GoogleNews, I was told I might be interested in a WSJ story about a guy who has run Every Day For The Last Forty Years. I was. Aside from being a story about incredible persistence and guts and commitment, it had one of the greatest quotes about running I have come across in a long time:
“What we’re doing is not a mark of intelligence.”
I love running because, while there are some perfectly rational/intelligent reasons for it, it is also just a little bit crazy. I mean, studies have shown that brisk walking is just as good for you and a lot easier on the bones. And swimming and biking have many of the same benefits. But there is something so primal, elemental and elegantly simple about running. It’s just you and the road (and the road is never – ever – impressed)… Add to that the fact that we have long since evolved beyond the point where we need to run in order to feed ourselves or to escape danger (mostly), and you have a pursuit with just a tint of the abnormal.
In short, running gives me an opportunity to bust outside the boundaries of the normal, to burn off some of the engorged stress of life by doing something that is a little bit off. Of course I could not see being crazy enough to going out and run every day for 40 years. But then again, a few years ago I would never have thought of sprinting up the Hill of Death.
