On the Run

Despite my running hiatus, I found I could not resist, and signed up to join my first (and hopefully not my last!) 10K this year.

I was actually set on NOT joining it, until I realized that I had joined the Condura Skyway Marathon every year since it began. Sadly, I won't be going up a race category as I had originally planned. I ran 5K in 2009, 10K in 2010, and should have been ready for a 16K this year. But...you know what they say about even the best laid plans.

I started running probably about 10 years ago, or something like that. I started out walking, then running and walking, then gradually developed enough endurance to run my whole route. I only started joining these so-called "fun runs" in 2007. My office used to be located inside a lovely university campus, making running not only convenient, but also quite refreshing. I found a kindred spirit in the office, who encouraged me to run, and the hour to an hour and half of pounding the pavement was also a time to commiserate with workplace woes or celebrate some office success.

Today however, I find it much more difficult to run, since I moved office and must contend with a one-and-a half hour commute from workplace to home. Theoretically, I could wake up early (and I mean early) to run, but my body will simply not tolerate the idea of running around in the dark. And by the time I've made it home at the end of the day, I'm often simply too tired to think of going out again to run.

Yes, I know, this labels me as "not a serious" runner. I don't mind. It's the truth.

But I enjoy it. And I wish I had the luxury of running more often. It's not the exercise that I miss so much, because I have a lot of other options for exercise. It's the meditative aspect of running that I miss. Unlike others, I don't run with an iPod, I much prefer silence and the sound of my breath to any other soundtrack. Yoga and running seem like twin pursuits to me, since the repetitive motion and the breathing make both these activities seem like meditation in motion.

I am currently reading "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Haruki Murakami. He captures perfectly what I like about running:

What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue...I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void. But as you might expect, an occasional thought will slip into this void...The thoughts that occur to me while I'm running are like clouds in the sky.  Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky as always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky...And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.