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.

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