Monday 30 September 2013

Beginnings - an affection

Once I couldn't run. I could chase a ball, dash across a road, play with children. But not run consistently even for just a kilometre; still less every day.

Even if I could have, the plain fact was that I didn't. Physical effort, besides the odd hike and moving furniture, even though I was strong and healthy enough, wasn't part of my life.

Had to change. Degenerated too far, fattened, lungs clogged. There was no “I” in this, it wasn't me deciding. A deeper drive engaged. Run.

Snuck survival

Into late nights I sneaked. Flung myself at a road, at my ignorance. Sounds serious. It was. It was also quite funny. I did it as lightly as I could; laughed maybe half as much as I gasped, more after. A circular route  took me over a hill; so once going, it was the same effort going back as going on. No going back, I forced myself through a long, long kilometre and a bit. I wheezed lots and, well, always felt beaten. 

My shins flared. I had to stop. Then start again. Didn't feel like it. Start again. Felt like I was making no progress. Start again.

Even had I known about a running group, a coach or guide who could help, I wouldn't have gone far too embarrassed to display me-like-that.

A year later I could run maybe three kilometres with a rest halfway. That made me feel okay enough to run in daylight on a road where others ran. I couldn't believe how they chatted into the foreign lands past my limits. 


In my defence, and with more than a hint of affection, I offer that this running, between walks and gasps, was done at around 4 min/km. I ran as far as fast as I could. I didn't know slower was also running. I was just doing my school-days running.

Six more months got me through five km, later to the end of a ten km with just a water break halfway, just a little slower than 4 min/km most likely. Got me glory no less, like Christmas tree lit from dark to magic,  a city at dusk when the lights come on.

New beginning

As a somewhat-runner, I joined a running group. First thing I learned: getting somewhere is just a new beginning. Two, three years after I first tried roads, I began again, stumbling behind runners who could chat and joke their way through twenty-two km.

Second thing I learned was that maybe it was an idea to buy proper running shoes and shorts. 

It was okay. I knew how to wheeze and stumble and get somewhere. As all starting does, my running start grew step by step run by run. 

Affection

Many miles later I still have this deep affection for those first floppings.
Beginning is just the hardest part of running.
So too do I have an affinity for the very real people who start or restart running; those who want to lift themselves to a higher level. I know what it it takes. I am that hum; it still thrums in me. 

I also know it helps for someone to be there with them. I had spent much time being with myself to get going. 

Once I spent time leading a beginner running group. It was easy for a Saturday morning three-hour fun runner,  a regular marathoner and more, to be with them for forty or so minutes which mostly became an hour, a couple of times a week. He just went out and got in a few more miles on his own.  

A great privilege it was to see them grapple then grow; to see them animate and glow; to be part of their first 5 km run, their first 10 km run, in a small way.

Re-beginning

Maybe my affection is just that often I had to re-start running: after not being able to run because of a knee-problem; after knee-cartilage surgery to resolve the problem, after the second knee was cut and trimmed too; after an illness.

A harder restart was after doing too much running and losing interest. Not much running for 6 months. Driven out again, I started, a beginner once more, jogging as much as I could through just one km out, then after a deep breath that huge km back, three times a week.

At the start of my first 100 mile run I felt David Bowie's sung-idea of being an “absolute beginner”.  Being a relatively seasoned short ultra runner helped little - the longer distance was completely daunting; the other runners looked terribly body-mind tough while I wobbled and ran inside. 

Hardest was starting again after five years of little running. My life had changed, I thought I filled with running enough. It was hard: start, stop: cold or 'flu. Start again, stop: knotted calf. Start, stop, grit my mind, start again. 
Running promises that you get stronger the longer you do it. 
I did know,it was possible, I had done it all before. I knew I didn't have to run at even 5 or 6 min/km. But know is know and do is do and the doing was hard, until it was done. Three years later if could run as I pleased again. I won't stop again.

And so

So I have this absolute affection for beginnings of journeys. 

Beginnings redeemed me. Got clean lungs, empowered heart, thinner sometimes. 

Got a richer life from those first dark, retching steps.  I even got to run mystical miles.

Beginnings are always there in what I do, beginnings, restarting. I am just a begun beginner.
As I run more years, my first steps are still there, affectionately wrapped in a corner of all my runs.

Thursday 26 September 2013

Forged by running


I am forged by running
formed on an anvil
being fired into me:
panting a late afternoon path
to mountain top empty
but for shadows, 
serenity
and the flares of 
teeming flames of life


Friday 20 September 2013

Fire flame



Lately I run harder, feet slap, ankle twitch, calf wrench, mouth grin; charge a hill, stride out a flat, ease a steep down; eat my lung-suck-heart-race. My mystic rose there, in that forge off that anvil. Got to fire the fire.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Wrought by running

I am wrought by running. Bound, rebound for a rock in a rushing stream
mistake moon-gleam on puddle for moon-sheen on rock,
splash on, mistake reed-clump for ankle-suck mud,
laugh-curse, squelch on
grit-toed, grinning.

Tuesday 10 September 2013

Tempered by running



I am tempered by running.
My path unwinds,
hard enough close,
ethereal in the distance,
into which I dissolve.

Monday 2 September 2013

Mind opens


5 km run with mountain stream


Body sings,
mind quietens
then opens
magnificently

33.7 km run over mountain with sun or mud


Run, your body strengthens
you can play, race and explore with that strength
Run on, your mind quietens
Run on and on, your body and mind merge
Further on as one, you open to all that is
You, a fragile, robust marvel of life, 
in this bursting great being,
as you run race, play, explore it.

Enough

Run strong, body sings
Mind opens, blossoms.
Mind and body merge.
Spirit rises 
when running with singing body, blossoming mind.
Spirit rising: the marvel, the reward
It is enough.

More

 ... Until I see, more is made in running 
the rising spirit
More is made
in the next repetition, in the next beat
of feet on the run-drum.
More:  the mystic of which I write,
and, crack-voiced, sing
of mystical miles,
through which I run and beam,
Bits of which gleam in my fingertips
in kitchen, at desk, at traffic lights.