Running Back
Image: Pierre-Antoine Franck, Unspash
When, in my early thirties, I first started running, I thought it was horribly masochistic drudgery. But, as I’d been urged to, I kept trying in short, regular bursts. Gradually another experience began to emerge. My body started to feel stronger and, after the first ten minutes or so, there was a feeling of lightness and momentum, invincibility even. I found that the nagging anxiety I’d struggled with for years began to soften and recede, and that if I began a day by running I was more buoyant and light-footed, less likely to get stuck in the fog and sludge of my own uncertainty, less likely to be undone by strange riptides of terror or sadness.
Running, outdoors rather than on a gym treadmill, brought me back into the sensations, and the power, of my own body. And it was free, unconstrained by class timetables or expensive equipment (unless you wanted the really fancy shoes). When I visited a new place, running made me feel somehow more present and rooted in the environment, more confident asserting my body’s right to be there — and, ultimately, more free. I ran on beaches in Wales, the West Country, the Isle of Wight; I ran through Paris and Belgrade, and on night-time city streets when the parks were shut…
After a morning run, tasks and activities that meant asserting myself, taking a stance, connecting with others or having a voice — like writing my PhD thesis, for example — seemed that bit more possible, that bit less distant and fantastical. Finding viable, regular physical exercise I enjoyed felt so transformative for me that, predictably, I was afraid to stop. A day in which I didn’t run might be doomed to go badly. In the end, I settled for a few days a week. Weekends off. And I rarely ran for more than 30 or 40 minutes.
In the Covid-19 lockdowns I realised I needed something gentler and less adrenaline-driven, and I developed, for a while, an online yoga habit. I was still running, though, up until my baby bump made it difficult to keep going.
