Why Run?

Human beings are lazy. It’s supposed to be that way.

The mind evolved over millennia to take shortcuts, weigh up potential risks against hopeful rewards. The body loves to rest, to lie down, take long deep breaths.

Humans thrive, perhaps more than anything else, on having plenty of sleep. And yet we’re supposed to exercise, aren’t we? It trains the heart, sharpens the mind, strengthens the muscles.

It sounds like an almighty paradox if you ask me...

This is not a blog about running. It’s a blog about everything!

Oscar Wilde famously said that: “everything in life is about sex; except sex which is about power”.

Well, it is my growing belief that, as expressed in the great Tao Te Ching, everything in life is actually about Change, or Movement; except Movement which is about Running. To understand, and to practice, Running is to understand life.

To experience the running body in full, fluent motion is to witness everything that encompasses the totality of human existence!

It is normal that, after completing a long run, I cry for example. They are not tears of panic, of anxiety, of confusion or even suffering. They are tears of absolute humility, and of gratitude for this physical vessel I seem to have been gifted for a short time to live out in human form.

If this is already more philosophical than your average running blog, then good. I am glad. Running is, after all, a philosophical subject much like anything else.

If I go weeks without running (which is sometimes the case) then it’s because I cannot right now answer that burning question: Why Run?

You too should ponder over it perhaps a little longer before you lace up your shoes and step out the door.

Have I taken care of the essentials? Is my house in order? Am I rested? How are my family and friends doing right now? What is this thing called ‘Life’ really about?

You might discover one of the following things:

1) that you are not running towards something, but instead ‘away’ from something else

2) that by running you are simply ‘activating’ yourself, or ‘preparing’, for another area of your life

3) that it doesn’t matter ‘why’ you’re about to go running, in fact, because it just feels so good to do it...

This list could be infinite, just as the answers to any truly ‘good’ question should be. That being said, we must ask the question.

We cannot help but try to answer it. Every time a child runs by, or a local marathon takes place, you too know that feeling, do you not? Instantaneously the thought occurs: why not me?

Ask the question. Attempt to answer it. As humans, and as runners, that is all we can do...

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