Joy of Running

Don't think I mentioned that 'middle child' returned from the Reading Music Festival on Monday. He brought with him some rather nasty flu-like symptoms but, considering the odour that permeated from the bag that returned with him we must all be very grateful that it is 'just a cold'.

Anyway, it is now the following weekend and inevitably Andrew and I have fallen fowl of 'Reading Flu' despite the fact that neither of us have ever been to Reading!. It has meant that running has been off the agenda yesterday and today and judging by the developing cough it may well be off for a few days to come. So I have done the next best thing and started the new book: John "The Penguin" Bingham's, The Courage to Start. I'm so glad that I bought this book because it's written in my language. It's not (so far) about how many miles to run how many times a week, it's very much more about finding the joy in running. It took me to page 53 to realise completely that this book was for me, until then there had been a lot about how wonderful running was and it did seem a lot easier than my own experience.

To start, he waddles (like a penguin), I lope (like a . . . well, like a loper!). He described that couch potato, first run moment that I'm sure we have all had when you set off, certain that you have Kenyan ancestors and 30 seconds later knowing that you haven't and you wonder what on earth is wrong with you. There was the visit to the 'running shoe shop' where the first language is runathon, he even described exactly what I wore the first time I went out to run!. From page 53 though he talks about finding the joy, and it was here that I had a 'light bulb' moment and if you're not a runner stick with me because this applies to all of life. In a nutshell, once we introduce the word 'should' into our running (you can substitute this word for almost anything that you are trying to achieve) you are setting yourself up to fail. Once we start looking around and thinking, or get told that we 'should' be running faster, further, more, less then the joy is lost and failure is inevitable. There is a lot to this and you'll need to read the book to get it all but at the end of the day we have to be honest about who we really are, now, we must accept that and then we work to get closer to the person we want to be.

At this moment, what I need to be asking myself is "how far and how fast 'can' I run" and then "how far and how fast do I 'want' to run" then I have to learn to live with simply narrowing the gap. Doing that will be slow and it will be hard, one day things work and the next day they won't, miles of running on a Sunday could be followed by the hardest mile a couple of days later and that's normal, that's how it works. It should never become a chore though, there are so many things in life that you have to do and running should never become one of them. I'm assuming that if you are getting close to a race then you do need to be a bit harder on yourself but at first, it should be about finding the good.

So, once 'Reading Flu' has run it's course I shall change my mindset and get out because I want to, not because I 'should'.