4. On running
Today, it’s nippy and sunny. All types of clouds co-exist in the same stretch of sky. During the mid mornings, when it’s quite, I sit at my desk, writing all sorts of things. Like now: I’m writing this, a piece on running that I pretty much compose as I wish. It’s autumn, so naturally it’s chilly. London’s been called the island of eternal rain, but since it’s in the Northen Hemisphere there are, arguably, four seasons of sort. Winter rain is colder than summer rain. I grew up in Athens, Greece, and compared to Athens – so sunny and lacking green areas – autumn in the UK is veritable cinematic. Heating is on here, and you need a sweater and a light jacket to step outside.
Since I moved to the UK, almost 20 years now, I’ve run about an hour, four days a week. When I travel, I hardly ever abandon this lifestyle in which, I run most days of the week. Today I run for 45 minutes listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I don’t usually listen to classical music when running, preferring podcasts and audiobooks for my longer weekend runs and running Spotify compilations on slightly shorter runs during the week.
Right now, I’m aiming at increasing the distance I run, so speed is less of an issue. As long as I can run a certain distance, that’s all I care about. Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace, I shorten the amount of time I run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing articles or grant applications. I stop everyday right at the point where I feel can write more. Do that and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly. Haruki Murakami does something like. To keep on going, you must keep the rhythm. This is important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed – and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can imagine.
It had rained before I went out to run and the smell of the rain on the grass lingered. But the grey clouds, had completely disappeared as if they remembered they had errands to run and whisked themselves away without so much as a glance back. The cool breeze felt good. The leaves crunched under my feet. On the way I passed a passed a few joggers, about an equal number of men and women. The energetic ones were zipping down the road, slicing through the air like they had robbers at their heels. Other, huffed and puffed, their eyes half closed, their shoulders slumped like this was the last thing in the world they wanted to be doing. I’m somewhere in the middle.
Running is the quiet scaffolding that holds my days together. Growing up I was not sporty and not a runner. However, since I moved to the UK running has become something else entirely: a conversation with myself. The rhythm of feet against pavement becomes a metronome for thought. I have designed research projects mid-run, solved arguments with myself, sometimes even cried into the air and wind.
It has also evolved. Once it was crushing the miles for marathon training , running logs, energy gels and 130 beats per minute soundtracks. Now it is often audiobooks, or the ambient soundtrack of a waking city and sometimes a latte at the end. Running is not about the finish line. It is not about medals or times, though I’ve tried those, too. It is about the act itself: the repetition of effort, the reminder that change and insight come step by step, through discomfort, through persistence.
Tomorrow, I’ll run again.