Running sucks. There’s no way around it.
Sweating, wobbling, wondering when it’s going to end. Not everyone has this reaction to running, but I do. I hate it, but I do it anyway. Am I masochistic? Kind of, I guess. But I also like to make myself do things I don’t really want to do because it makes me feel better afterward. Like, “I survived, it wasn’t really that bad.”
Plus, it’s cool to see actual improvement. I’ve been running 4 miles under 40 minutes pretty consistently and am working on getting my time down each time I run. It’s not impressive at all, but I don’t care. I don’t run to impress others; I run for me. Even though I hate it. Go figure.
I talked to a psychologist I used to work with about running. He runs ultra-marathons, which I think is insane. I asked him how the hell he could do 60 miles (or however far it is), let alone 26.2. He just said he thinks about absolutely nothing. Just gets in tune with his body and doesn’t have a thought in his head. He likes the feeling of seeing a protruding tree root, or a bend in the path, and reacting instantly without the sometimes-irritating middleman of our consciousness to slow us down. It’s really simple and natural when you think about it.
Running was his “tuning-out” activity. His “centering technique”. Whatever you want to call it. Running will never be that for me, that’s for sure. I’m always thinking when I run, always coming up with ideas. I’m painfully aware of the fact that I’m repeatedly putting sneakers to pavement — painfully aware of my pain. I think of things to distract myself from the discomfort I’m experiencing. But I admit that I can get into a groove after I put a few miles under my belt, and I can even enjoy it once in a while. Never thought I’d say that.
My “tuning-out” activity is playing guitar. I just react to the instrument and play whatever comes into my head, turning my brain almost completely off. It’s an emotional experience, but I almost never have an actual thought bouncing through my mind when I’m picking the strings. I could immediately relate to what my coworker was saying because I got the same thing from music that he did from running. It was cleansing, like hitting some reset button in your soul. I look at guys onstage making weird faces as they wail on their instruments and I intuitively understand that (although I make no claims that I am even a fraction as good as they are). It’s not just that they’re fucked up on some random hallucinogen (maybe some of them are) — they’re shutting off their minds and just acting. And acting, sometimes, feels like cutting out the middleman and getting right to the core of things. Tapping into whatever goop down there in those Jungian shadows that makes you tick. It’s not something you can easily translate into words, because words have limitations, and that….feeling, that thing that just does it for you, is indescribable.
While running probably won’t ever make me fall into fits of ecstasy, I’m going to do it anyway. Doing something hard and a little unpleasant is centering in its own way, and it’s good to have both of those activities in my life — the relaxing and the mildly stressful. It’s like having a pat on the back when I need it and getting a push forward when I need it.
Having said that, I’m going running now, and it’s going to suck. Good.