summer of running
I’ve been craving grit. to be pushed to some edge and make it out on the other side, more alive.
so I started running. 100 miles since July. almost entirely in the forest.
Running is teaching me things. about craft. about principles.
There is something about propelling one’s self through space, covering ground with just a body. Sometimes I look down mid-stride, stunned.
For me, the beginning usually sucks. Everything feels tight and heightened. My calves relentlessly announce themselves. At mile one and two I am certain that I will quit; that I will give in to the discomfort and pain. But eventually mile three comes around and god willing, mile four. This is when everything changes.
At mile four, I finally find myself in the fucking pocket, just gliding, like I might run forever, like my legs might carry me indefinitely.
Running is teaching me momentum.
A few weeks ago I found myself on one of those concrete islands in the middle of a big intersection.
I used to scoff at runners who jogged in place at stop lights. I didn’t get it. But I see now that the need to keep moving is almost instinctual. I felt compelled to stay in motion. At a crawl I was still in the rhythms of time, still in the conversation. When the light turned, I was primed to get back in the pocket.
I take these teachings back to my practice:
◦ don’t make meaning about obstacles
◦ trust that the light will change
◦ A lull is gentler than all or nothing
It’s taken months of trial and error to figure out what works. What length of shorts, where to put my phone, how much water (if any) to carry.
I know this is a knowledge and experience problem, not a character flaw. I don’t spend time berating myself. I trust that through enough iteration the answers will come.
Everyone runs differently, a friend reminded me recently. Drastically changing how you run can lead to injury.
This lesson reverberated through my practice.
I got reauthorized to use the equipment at a local screen printing lab last week. To do so required being shadowed by one of their teachers.
The first half of the process was a breeze, but when we got to the actual printing, I fumbled my way through the lab’s criteria. I hadn’t used their method in years. It felt awkward and confining. The teacher then asked me to print my way, the version I felt most comfortable with.
He watched as things got messier, more chaotic. When I was done, he inspected the prints. “These are perfect”, he said, and instructed me to disregard the initial format indefinitely. "Just keep doing what you’re doing because it works”.
The more I run, the more I assume a runner’s gait.
The more I run, the more agile I feel.
I used to think some people were born runners. But this year has taught me that everything is built. Whatever looks most innate usually means countless hours have been spent in the arena; that imperceptible shifts have happened over expanses of time.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this. That everything is a skill. When I see this truth, my cultural programming - the obsession with beginnings and endings, the lack of airspace for middles - begins to flicker, the paradigm unnerved. From here I can see the complete disregard for the intangible, the components that actually make up a life.
Yes, in running I am finding grit. I am pushing myself to edges and then pushing those edges. But what I did not expect to find is my own humanity, a benevolence I had been longing for. a gentleness that just is. There is nothing to be earned.
Running brought me to the forest. I am learning to listen.