Notes from November: Running

Six weeks after getting properly back into running again, I’m actually starting to deeply enjoy it. At first I found it tedious and uncomfortable and perceived it as nothing but a masochistic chore. Now though, as my levels of stamina and conditioning increase, I am finding it far less monotonous and painful. Although I find it pleasant when I notice my speed increasing, when I find it easier to keep my breath and when I begin to feel the warm, gentle flow of endorphins in my bloodstream, these only account for the lesser reasons why I am now finding it to be so enjoyable.

The greater reasons for my enhanced appreciation of running have come through the aesthetic opportunities that it can provide. Having been an avid hillwalker for many years, I suppose this is entirely natural. This particular connection came to me one day when, as I was finding a run particularly miserable and uncomfortable, I suddenly discovered myself in the midst of a whirlwind of dry leaves that had been whipped into flight by the wind and the passing traffic. As I noticed them dancing through the air I found myself aware of everything else about that Autumn day that was so lovely. In my battle with tedium and discomfort I had quite forgotten to pay attention to the beauty of the world in a way that I would have done if I were out on a pleasant walk.

Through the flurrying leaves I glimpsed the hills rising beyond the village boundaries and noticed the beauty of the thick, pine woods that rested upon their shoulders. I drank in the sight of the lonely white farmhouse on the hillside as it exhaled thin wisps of pale wood-smoke through its old stone chimney. My eyes followed the rising plumes to the low sky where its flow was swallowed by puffed white clouds that dangled from the dabs of grey that clung to the dark ridge of the hills.

Above me, flashes of pale blue streaked with the dazzling gold of low, afternoon sun were dispersed as soon as they appeared by opaque streams of shadow that sapped the last reserves of the sun’s heat and cooled my hot skin with lazy splashes of stray rain. I became aware, as I ran, that the banging rhythm of nails being hammered into wood from a nearby field were beating in time with the pounding of my feet: and that, with the visual and tactile sensations I was already experiencing, led to the completion of the sense of great, harmonious appreciation, empathy and awareness I felt for everything around me.

If I complete a run in the correct frame of mind, feelings of aesthetic, spiritual harmony with the world and with nature can combine with the satisfying glow of stirred endorphins, thoughtful contemplation and well-deserved rest to create a unique mix of sensations that fill my glad, weary limbs, and my stiller, more silent heart with gladness and joy.

This kind of use of something physically difficult or initially uninteresting seems to me to provide a good example of how ‘mortification of the flesh’ can and should be practiced. Although it may be the response that they provide until we strengthen and improve ourselves, the idea of performing such exercises should not be the suffering and misery that they produce, but rather the genuine joy and gladness that can be found when we force ourselves – for our own good – to do things which our own concupiscent, forgetful, slothful natures often prevent us from doing through apathy and inertia.

Eventually, as my ability increases, I will take myself away from roads, lanes and built-up areas and embark upon long runs over fells, plains and moors, through woods and hills and around seas and mountains: and thus, through greater trials I will find greater pleasures.