Welcome to the Great Church of Running

I am an atheist. I am comfortable with there being no God.

I took GCSE and A Level Religious Studies all those years ago, and having examined the arguments, I came to my conclusion and stuck with it. If there is an all-powerful and beneficent consciousness in our universe, it is not invested in an external deity, it rests in every human beings' conscience, and works through individual and collective actions.

Whoo. That's pretty deep stuff for the morning after a great night out with a very dear and long-loved friend. Considering that we split 2 bottles of white wine over a couple of pizzas and spent 4 or 5 hours putting the world definitively to rights for what felt like the first time in years, I'm in a pretty good shape this morning. A few years ago, there would have been more wine, probably some dancing, and a much later night, but we're older now, and we almost always know when to stop.

However, I am in no shape to go for my now-customary very long Sunday run, and I'm trying to balance a mild feeling of guilt with enjoying the luxury of a Sunday morning alone, in my jamas, drinking tea, with a catch up of the latest installment of The Walking Dead and the cat. I suppose, now that I regularly like to get 10 or 12 miles under my belt before breakfast on a Sunday morning, that I am a serious runner. Not the fastest or the best, but that's not what I'm out there for. As I've hinted at in previous posts, there is something spiritual that I find in running which is acceptable to me, where in any other form I would be uncomfortable. 

My understanding of religion, learned as a subject in school rather than being brought up as a believer, comes through the filter of a Western Christian cultural background and leads me to conclude that all religions are based on early attempts to make sense of and explain the physical world. These early, and usually logical assumptions (based on limited scientific knowledge and empirical observations) then became encoded as rules that would help to build sustainable identities among, and sometimes in opposition to, disparate groups of people. By observing certain customs and performing specific behaviours, one distinguishes oneself as a member of one culture, and not another. Most of my life though, has been spent refusing to be defined and resisting belonging in any category. In Groucho's words, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member". I am the only example of myself, and I do not wish to be like anyone else, but it's part of the human condition to seek out people who share your experiences, values, beliefs, interests. People give you strength. We achieve together.

In accordance with the Zen of Running, lessons for life can be extrapolated from things learned through learning to run. On my long runs recently, I've realised that what I do when my body clicks into autopilot is as close to meditation as I've ever been. My mind is free and it wanders, flits, picks, circles and dances and does things it's not usually allowed to do. I can come back from a run with no real idea of what I've been thinking about, but with a new knowledge of my opinion of a subject I'd previously not given a thought to. My favourite was a realisation that the film "28 Days Later" was a different type of zombie movie because the thing that made people like the living dead was a disease called Rage, and represented the mindless spewing of intolerance which can infect society, where most clever Zom-flicks use it as a representation of relentless and unthinking commercial consumption. Not ground breaking, but not bad for a 5k on a cold morning, and it coincided with a pretty quick time too.

I've come to decisions about difficult situations I've been unwilling to tackle, and I've run through every emotion it's possible to have. Embarrassment runs are awful - you are running from whatever it is you did that makes you cringe. They need hills and speed and still the memories are there. Broken-hearted runs are the same - there's occasional angry outbursts as thoughts spill into spoken words when no-one's around. This week I've very much enjoyed 2 "I DID IT!" runs, with a great big smug smile on my face. Sometimes I have a good argument with myself about whatever's on my mind, giving a voice to each of my mixed emotions and allowing my head to be an impartial judge, instead of sticking with what I "should" do or think. All of these thoughts are sometimes used to distract myself from the physical act of running, blocking out the messages coming from the rest of my body. Occasionally, I encourage these voices too. I think of myself now as less of a single monolithic entity and more as the speaker of a parliament of emotions and sensations, and I address the parts of my body separately - "Feet! How are you feeling? Left one's a little tight, eh? Ok we'll see what we can do. Knees! You ok? Heart, you ticking along alright? Shoulders! All good? Nice one guys, lets keep going. No, bladder, you do not need a wee, we went before we set off. Besides, you can hold it for another 40mins, til we're home, can't you?"

And when I do get home, I always feel better. I know I've achieved something. Sometimes it takes a while to set in, but it comes. This is what those good hormones do, soothing and fixing sore muscles and rewarding the brain, the body's own thank-you for all that exercise.

My long runs are my meditative time to reflect on everything, and I suppose that this is what prayer feels like. I release my worries to a higher power, but in my case it's not God, it's a less inhibited thinking. Usually, the longest runs are on the weekends, with Sunday being the usual, as I don't generally have work to do. When I'm out, and I encounter other runners, we nod and smile at each other. Walkers and cyclists get the same. Being out there gives us a shared experience and identity.

Last week, it eventually occurred to me what the start of a race reminds me of. Lots of people are gathered in one place, all appropriately dressed for the task of performing a collective ritual. We are addressed by someone with an inspiring message, and then we all go out together and do our best. We all believe in the power of running to do good. It is first of all good for us - we are slimmer, healthier, happier and more relaxed, but the vast majority of runners raise funds for charities through sponsorship - asking other non-active believers to contribute. At the finish line, we all recognise the effort each of us has had to put in, and strangers dispense heartfelt congratulations, without prejudice or reserve. If you've struck up a conversation on the route with someone, the support you each draw from the other can be essential, and although you will probably never see each other again, a hug is often necessary, acknowledging the fleeting closeness and unspoken understanding.

Last Sunday, I ran the Leeds Half Marathon: the longest and fastest run I've achieved yet. I am still quite high on the numbers - 2hours 13mins 40secs; an average pace of 10.08mins per mile. I have a medal and a t-shirt that tells everyone I did it. It would appear that I am now a fully paid up member, even an evangelist for the Church of Running (or other physical exercise). Freely available and welcoming, open to all who approach. You will find no judgement on who you are, or whatever you've done before, as long as you accept that you are a body which needs to move. Respect and love your fellow man, eat wholeheartedly and share your life with friends and family, but ensure you put on the lycra and burn calories afterwards. Smile at people as you go past, and do not point out their wobbly bits lest yours become pointed at too.

Running is a religion, and it's the only one I'm happy to be part of, but this morning, I'm dodging observance of one of my worships and indulging in a different ritual.

Now - where's that big fat Sunday breakfast? 

The Switch

Forgive me, for it has been over a month since I last blogged.

I must also admit that in these quiet weeks, I've only been out for 2 or 3 runs.

However, since taking it slightly easier, the weight has really fallen off, despite eating rubbish and drinking a bit more. I'm now 13stone - that's 2 less than when I started writing this. I have to conclude that this is mainly down to the 40miles a week of walking I've managed to maintain since mid-March, as I've been far more consistent in this than with the running. In fact, I reckon the running started to shift it, and the walking's kept it going.

The strange thing is that when I wrote the last entry on this blog, having had a totally uncharacteristic mid-day nap and feeling completely wrung out after the Temple Newsam 10k, I was aware that something had changed. Since then I've tried to figure out just what happened, but there's simply no explanation other than it seems a switch was flicked in my head that said "That's enough now."

Until then, running was part of my routine - every other day, at least 3 times a week, I was out in the early morning putting in a few miles. On a running day, I would feel satisfied and pleased with myself for having achieved something, no matter how small and insignificant. On the rest days I would plan my next run, something a little longer maybe, or perhaps a little more demanding in hills or intensity. All the time, I was walking everywhere, and all the exercise meant that those feel-good hormones were pulsing around my system, giving me a little more confidence, a bit more of a chilled out approach to life and even a little extra reserve of patience in stressful situations. This is what I love about running - it's not how you feel when you're doing it, the effects are felt afterwards in so many ways.

Somehow, though, that switch that kept me going had flipped off. My morning would start with me waking up in bed, and the part of my brain that responds to the satisfaction of obeying routine would say "Are we going for a run, then?", and the whole of my body would reply with a straight, honest "No," and not even feel guilty about it. On the few occasions that I've been out, it's been a result of my body replying to my brain's question with a "Yeah alright then," which was definitely not its' former "Hell yeah! Off we go!" I surprised myself by managing the odd 5k, or a run down the canal for 4.5miles, knowing that practically all the way, my brain and body were arguing like the mother and daughter I wrote about before.

I had begun to worry. The urge had gone. Is this forever? Would I ever fall back in love with running again, or is this it? What would that mean for my 5 run challenge?

I did a few calculations about the other times I've taken up and forsaken running. When I first started to do fun-runs and fundraisers, it was as a motivator to lose weight after hitting what I then considered to be an obscene weight, which I believed I should never, ever allow myself to return to or go above ever again - and that was 13 and a half stone. I got down to what I think of as my ideal, healthy running weight of 11 and a half stone (I actually went as low as 10stone 12pounds, but I looked like a skeletal horse) within a few months, then at the end of that season, I developed plantar fasciitis. I stopped running then, and by the time the good weather had returned, I had started a business, and was too busy running that to get out first thing in the morning. I came to the conclusion that the switch has flicked itself OFF a few times in the past, but I've had things which prevented me from noticing it, or reasons to ignore it.

I know when the switch is in the ON position. It's usually in the early New Year that I notice that the sight of other runners engenders that swelling feeling of mixed envy and pride, and thoughts of being part of a running event put a lump in my throat, and then I look at myself, realise I need to lose some weight and talk to myself about it for a while before one day, quite unexpectedly, I wake up, put my running gear on and find myself out making dragons breath on a cold and frosty morning, and feeling awesome. It's probably fair to say the switch is probably something that will flick on and off at intervals for as long as I live -Dad says his switch is still ON, and it's terrible for him because he really can't run any more. That's a peculiar torture, and it worries me I might have to live with it.

A few days ago I decided that I needed to focus again, to have something to train for (which is why I decided to do 5 runs throughout the season), and that I would start running again next week, the start of August. One last weekend of lounging, I thought. That'll give me time to sort out this weird knee thing that's started in the last few days (a randomly occasional sharp pain behind my kneecap, as if it's bending too far forward), and see off the groin thing, which has been improving no end since taking it a bit easier. I had 3 beers last night, and a late night in front of the telly - surefire non-running behaviour. And then this morning, I woke up at 7am, and realised that I was going for a run, no decision about it.

33minutes. 4.5k. dead easy. I totally deserved my fat breakfast of french toast and fried mushrooms with a massive cup of tea. After a shower, I've logged on and registered for the Abbey Dash on the 20th November- the end of season run that is the other emotional run for me. This is the 10k that I've seen going up Kirkstall Road each year and felt the urge, the envy, the pride, and the unexpected tears welling up about taking part in. I'll finally do it this year.

Perhaps the switch flicked ON again over night. Or maybe I just like getting out on a sunny morning. I don't really care. It was a lovely run, and it was all mine.

Disaster strikes!

With less than a month to go! Well, slight and temporary disaster, anyway....

I have sustained a drinking injury. I went out for a catch up with an old friend on Wednesday, and on the way home, weaving rather than walking, I went over on my ankle. Being in a rather relaxed frame of mind, I walked all the rest of the way home with the recognition that it hurt, but not really very bothered. I fell into bed around 1ish.

...And then woke up at 6am to go do some early overtime, wriggled out of bed and realised my foot wasn't working. It was all swollen and stiff and wouldn't move to either side. Putting weight on it was not a good idea. I've sprained it.

But it's not a very bad one. I strapped it up yesterday and fed it ibuprofen, didn't walk on it, spent all day at work with it nicely resting, and got a very healthy 9 hours sleep last night. This morning, the swelling's gone down and it's doing as it's told again, but I'm not going out for the run I was planning. I am about to walk to work though, it felt really wrong to be getting the bus yesterday, and I'm not missing another easy 8miles today.

Thanks so much to everyone who's given me an extra dose of motivation - I promise this won't slow me down for long!