This morning dawned bright and slightly cool, but for once I had no problem getting started. Unlike Nick’s car which was suffering from a garmin-esque loss of battery power. Not a man to let such a small detail stand in his way, he duly arrived and we set out at a slow pace down the road.
The Bok didn’t get his name for no reason and whilst I have occasionally managed to develop tactics to slow him down to my pace, or unsettle him, he usually figures out what I’m up to. Alas.
Except that he’s been tres busy, and the easy way to catch up with his news was to chat during a run. Why don’t you bring me up to speed, Nick?
Whilst he talked, we headed out to the Royal Oak and up through Hundred Acre Wood where, despite the rain that we’ve had recently, the going was not too muddy. Not that this was a problem as he was wearing his old trainers again… although he did tease me by showing me his sparkling new ones in his gym bag before we left!
Shame really, because I’m sure that I could have found a lot more mud if he’d been wearing them!
Deep into the wood, it finally dawned on him that he was puffing away between words while I was coasting along uttering ‘uh-huh’ in the appropriate places. He zipped up and I zipped off ahead for a few minutes before eventually having to stop for, er… a drink of water.
And some oxygen.
We crossed the Common chased by a herd of bullocks (sorry, that’s a load of bo’ks actually, but it did make him look round sharpish for a moment) and then on through to Wellhouse Lane.
It was odd that someone had stolen almost all the puddles along the track and had also filled in some of the resulting empty hollows with road aggregate. As we ran, I tried to figure out whether travellers had done this in preparation for some neat summer quarters, or that the owners had got fed up with someone stealing their puddles. Either might help to explain the car that was jammed up against the gate, sideways, designed presumably to block all but the most intrepid of entrances.
The front runner changed a couple of times in the valley past the water tower, with the Bok streaming ahead into the dip and me overtaking him up the other side… the real moment of glory (for me) was not that I reached the top first, but that his heart-rate monitor finally cracked under the pressure and emitted a solitary beep-beep-beep-beep, before he gagged it with a deft right-hander.
Despite his heart-rate maxxing out, I am sad to report that it was I who then had to pause for air while the Bok continued ahead.
He graciously paused for me to catch up and I then stayed with him for the sprint up past the station, but he stretched ahead once again for most of the way down the hill the other side.
Alas for the Bok, my coup-de-grace was the application of some differentiated strategic planning. We always stop on the same corner, which is what he did. But I unilaterally decided to move the goalposts right up to the house and by the time he’d twigged that I’d sprinted on past, it was too late and victory (pyrrhic, of course) was mine!
We covered a satisfying 6.7 miles in 59 minutes and celebrated by eating toast with espresso in the garden.
Some Questions on the run!
It’s intriguing for me to read a blog about running, because although I have run for both pleasure and necessity, I have never cultivated the habit of running regularly despite making some brief attempts two summers ago. And although I can see and understand the benefits of running I now ask myself the question, “why don’t I run anymore?”
A great spiritual leader (Paul) used running as a metaphor to symbolize his spiritual life. In life although many Christians talk about their ‘Christian walk’, it is sometimes again worth asking why many Christians ‘walk’ rather than ‘run’ the ‘race’.
Paul admonishes one of his students to take some exercise and encourages training to run the ‘race’. Is it because he wants us to run or that we can’t avoid it, so we should at least try to be fit for it?
I can vaguely remember as a youth I ran frequently and fervently and that there were moments when it could become effortless, unconscious, fulfilling, joyful and even euphoric- do runners have a name for this? (No cheap jokes please). But there were also times when the run was no fun and the jog was a slog. But that is why I believe Paul used ‘running’ as a euphemism for ‘living’. Isn’t life full of emotional highs and lows?
Some jogs may have a purpose, some may not, some may be long,some short, some more fulfilling than others, some meet with disaster and some with success. But undeniably all have a beginning, middle and an end – so does life.
Finally (phew I hear you gasp) after my ‘ranting’ I go back to what I started with….’Why have I stopped running?’
My answer is that even though I can see the benefits, lethargy, lack of motivation and lots of other distractions means that for now it remains a desire not an action. But I can’t help but think that if one of the greatest spiritual men who ever lived saw benefits in physical running, how might it affect my spiritual ‘running’ and wouldn’t the reverse be true, that my spiritual ‘running’ might help me run better in the physical?
The next time ‘I find myself’ running, I might ask myself even more questions like where am I running to and from, and exactly why am I running and maybe my jog will become something that is both physical and mental and dare I say even spiritual…..keep on running. Do we really have a choice?
its good to be back!