Why Running? Simplicity.

As mentioned in my previous post, the list of necessary items for running is short.  The simplicity of that brevity is one of my favorite things about running.  It takes a body and mind willing to do it, and that's about it.  

I have dabbled in and enjoyed other sports.  I grew up on a basketball court.  I raced bikes, both road and mountain.  I rock climb, raft, ski, and backpack.  None of them mean to me what running does.  And part of that is complication versus simplicity.

All those other sports require some sort of gear, or a ball, or a team.  Gear can be cost-prohibitive, cumbersome, and potentially fail with varying degrees of calamity.  Ball sports require a suspension of disbelief.  It takes a group of people to agree that for whatever the duration of the game, the inflatable ball is the most important thing in the universe.  When one stops to really consider that, it's borderline whimsical.  

Running is cut and dried.  It requires no gear, tools, mechanization, or rule books.  It is historic.  It is rooted in biological evolution.  We can now leisurely do something that was once selected for by the environmental pressures placed upon our ancestors.  Running was once the very thing that kept us alive.  That's about as simple as it gets.

Unburden Your Running

Things one needs to run:

1.  Gumption

2.  Shoes (optional)

3.  Watch (optional)

4.  Shorts (optional, though strongly recommended and often legally required)

5.  If you're an old, balding, pasty man like me, a hat can sure be useful.

Things one DOES NOT need to run:

1. Literally anything and everything else.

Leave it at home.

Running for running's sake.

I haven't spent much of the last three years focused on running or racing.  Work obligations and travel have been the primary excuse, but laziness, apathy, and advancing old age have all played a part.  As I settle firmly into my mid-thirties, I find my desire to race, and the competitive spirit that always fed that desire, waning as the years go by.  It becomes harder and harder to get into that head space.  I have finally come to accept that.

Lately, I am running more.  I'm back to doing it for the pure fun of it.  It feels like the closest I've felt to the 15-year-old me who first started running 20 years ago.  That kid got his ass kicked by it and made the decision that underneath it all, it made him feel alive.  Two decades later, after wandering, searching, being lost, I feel like I have finally come back to the beginning.  Running just makes sense.  It's the only thing that ever has.

I do still have some goals.  I do still want to challenge myself.  But I don't want to lose myself or the purpose behind this in those challenges.  It is important to push the limits, try new things, be uncomfortable.  That is how we learn.  The point is to not get so caught up in the challenges that it festers as self-pity and self-doubt.

Slowly, piece-by-piece, I am attempting to rebuild myself, mentally and physically.  No longer will I compare what I am doing now, what I am capable of now, to my younger and faster self.  He had his time.  I value the present, being in the moment, more than I ever have.  I feel most in the moment when I am on the trail, clipping off an honest pace, and appreciating the act.  The rocks, the soil, the flora, the hills, the clouds, the sun, the one-foot-in-front-of-the- other of it is the essence.  I hope to do this the rest of my life.

Until the wheels fall off.