runtothere

There is a spiritual saying: "keep your mind in hell and despair not" (Elder Silouan). It is one of those sayings that becomes deeper over time - the kind that Samurai/zen masters note: study this carefully. Always keep a grain of sand in the day. For pearls. I realized after my last post that I do the same even in my training, it is just that I have taken a zone of proximal development to my pain cave. When I began running after a decade-long break, I craved distance and would only get out to run far even though I would end up pretty depleted and in pain for a long time, both after the run and in the months after I began to run again - it is interesting how this did not deter me. So, my first step was to keep at it until my recovery improved. My new rule is that unless I am running particularly far, I must have no pain or exhaustion after runs. This also helps me note where stress is creeping in, to be ready to dial things back. Once I found I was recovering well from t...

The days are finally long enough to go longer but it just doesn't feel like I am going that far despite the miles that are racking up. As a dogged distance 'jogger', I still don't understand how I continue to build muscle and efficiency on this regime. "It is better to be wrong than to simply follow convention," is advice given to the protagonist of The Power of One . When it comes to running, I flout contemporary customs involving speedwork and run my own runs, all of the time. Five years into my return to running I remain uninjured, running probably an average of 55+ miles a week (some are less, some are more). This was not a strategy, but the way to keep myself keeping on, getting out the door.* When I plan smaller mileage days, I find I want to skip them. And I have learned that I can manage going long even when cramming back to back (to back to back) long runs. Though not a strategy, it is demonstrative of the behavior of a type : the "endurance mo...

The idea of speeding up is less appealing to me than stretching runs into the far distance. Sometimes I look at the gathering of trees in the hills that I run to and recognize where I'd once stored thoughts of what had been ailing me and am reminded of how enormous nature is, capable of absorbing so much thought and still go far beyond it, when those same thoughts, when trapped inside my mind, become unwieldy. Once in the forest, they blend in and gradually disappear: replaced with an almost inert snail on the path, syrupy summer air, the call of fighting jays. They beckon the mind out of itself and into the intricacies of creatures, plants, wind, weather. A unity is achieved, a balance restored. I occasionally speed up when I feel like it though, like to chase or pass the occasional other runner I encounter. But this month, I got a new training partner. It was after the rain. I was slogging up the steep, barely-a-trail that cuts straight up through the more tangled trees to the ...

cuddlie kittehs @ brushy mount? to go there expressly past  ersatz awards for arbitrary stopping points and Daily Planners forgetting what it means to try together but to be alone up there with the gorges, bluffs, and Platonic caves even a headlamp becomes a shadow so beyond things as to lose is to find the self, or the terrain, a breathing underworld what life is like underwater for years now all this grey coming down in strokes for traction, where’s the gravitude on this bed of ocean, where do I lie, or do I stand among wet sand a conch, and then the sleet in lines to fall while yet inclining to take that leg out of that swamp to feel the briars scratching the sound of a mind on doubt puffs white smoke, an effusion from the psychosomatic nature of feet for the underbrush that tears at this amusement of the motion to persist too easily slips out from under even the one who has done it. what is capable. no one has ever been here before, ever in reverse, t...

A great song featured on episode 60 of The Trail Show has a guy singing in falsetto: Back on the trail, back on the trail, we won't stop 'til we get up that hill . It has that same talismanic motivational power for me as the phrase: I eat hills for breakfast . When I think of these phrases on long runs, they make me laugh " which is nice " (link takes you to the almost eponymous Fast Show sketch) except that chortling internally makes me run slower. I love so much the 'mini training' that distance running gives; I do not know if it is because this was instilled in me through the Outward Bound camps that removed me from my otherwise asthmatic and, also, relatively inert childhood. But even on days when I am less motivated to get out, I know that once I get to the hilly forest, I will not regret the views, and also, that the fitness I build by getting out consistently will reward me on days when I really need to puff my way to an uphill panorama. And then, al...

Actually, I do. It's when the little bugs and flies suddenly leap to life on an early spring day and probably inebriated with joy at being out again can suddenly fly directly into an uphill-induced, momentarily open mouth. Then down the gullet out of sheer velocity. Anyway, after imbibing said drunken fly, I had that "There was an old lady" song stuck in my head for the next 20k, which flew by as I couldn't help chuckling at the impossible song; I am sure I looked really sane powered by a goofy grin as I flew down the hill. Or maybe the fly gave me wings. So I am going to file this post under "nutrition". What spring looks like. Besides the flies.

How is it that we speak of "straying" from ourselves? What can you do to return to to yourself if you have strayed; how might you know if you have; how long does it take to return - and is there a point of no return? I would love to get answers to these questions from as many people as possible. Of course, it's possible to think about these things on a more global scale, too - like in the book The Mushroom at the End of the World , an anthropological meditation on the now capitalist implications of the pursuit of the matsutake mushroom (a book I learned only of via a review of its French translation ). It seems like we expect that we are able to fathom the consequences of our pursuits and wanderings, given our "rational minds" - even though even a single jog through the country park may begin out of several reasons, give rise to several more, so have several possibly conflicting consequences to keep track of. A mushroom, the matsutake , that was once used in...

Life got steeper in previous months: I no longer had time for blogging, or sleep. But then, I found myself two weeks ago on a literally steep mountain. For the first time in over a decade, I was running on a trail absorbed with boulders, stones, tree roots that wound around a coast, getting higher and higher - until I suddenly happened upon a large Indian family, whose little son blurted: you are going so fast! And I took their photo for them as they laughed on New Year's Eve, and I regret now that I was so deep in thought on that run that I did not ask them if they would mind sending me photos of that view, care of altitude. It is supposed to be marathon-training season for me, but after those mountains, the very ones from my childhood, I don't see the point. I signed up for the marathon in the past two years to make sure I would train through the winter where I live now, replete as it is with winds that freeze hair. But I have come to love the days of inclement weather j...

It has been a strange summer. For a while, I was doing regular 18 mile runs in 95F+ heat, until I suddenly lost the will to run , totally exhausted. This week, I jumped back into mid-range mileage, and feel less out of shape than encouraged because my running form seemed to come together, which was confirmed by a friend, who called it "finally harmonious" (!) This took two years to accomplish - admittedly, with no coach and along the slow road. The past two years have felt like the trial of investing an immense effort, more than I can fathom, unsure if I will finally arrive "somewhere", with something to show for it, though I have felt moved to "keep on". But like my now-improved running form showed me, a run I took yesterday also illustrated that there is something to be said for perseverance, even sans the coach one wishes for. At one moment during the run, I thought, how can I possibly go 2/3 further, and the next moment, the distance - seemingly of l...

I am still trying to shake off that unwanted running buddy of midsection kilograms - and marvel at how I have less of an issue showing off my running-induced blue toes in sandals than coping with the war trophy of the end-of-term stomach (induced by sleepless nights writing, marking, or invigilating). The blog post I had been composing was supposed to be about the pleasure of running far enough to see swans puff themselves out like cumuli on hot days, or the pheasant I found that lives in a park; the indescribable pleasure of feeling the weather and its hourly changes as opposed to intellectually understanding what it says in an app. But what finally prompted me to open this Compose page were the two vampire moth bites I sustained - which frightened me so much, that I now prefer to do regular 17 mile runs on a totally different route in order to avoid the chance of seeing these insects again, for a time. One day, I was running along, minding my own business, when I felt something on...

This will be a brief post because during this unusual window of recreational off-time, I have decided to keep up with the WS100 updates. Like, I feel life is like a race now, so it's therapeutic to watch a race, just like once upon a time, in the midst of giving too many exams, I felt cured by watching "judge shows", specifically "Chopped", which depersonalised my understanding that assessment can verge on the arbitrary. But let's talk about races. Specifically, the feeling of where the good old college try in the race is foiled by sudden changes to the course, different from what was trained for. This is all figurative - but two running-based passages got me back on track in my losing 'race', which is why I thought I would write about it on this blog. First, were parts of AJW's WSJ100 speech , which inspired my will to continue with relentless forward motion. He says things like: "I want you to go into the race confident, resilient, and f...

How glorious it is to blaze a new trail, and suddenly to appear in learned society, a book of discoveries in one’s hand, like an unforeseen comet flashing through space! While that line was written somewhat ironically, by a person of leisure placed under a 42-day house arrest for duelling, at which time he composed this "palliative" (i.e. relieving, if not curative) account of a 42-day "voyage around [his] room", I often think of it, maybe also ironically, when I fortify myself with runs before reappearing in society. But it is tough when running time is infringed upon by the very activities a person wants to strengthen themselves for. That's been my life since my last post. I've needed to shift how I look at my running. I've thought back to the old people I would once run past after newspaper shifts, around five or six in the morning, making their way up to a Chinese mountain peak - walking and stretching their arms in various directions, often acco...

In "Run For Your Life",  NY Marathon founder Fred Lebow's brother, already tearful, says with gravitas of his sibling that, "Running was his religion". I immediately wondered: would I even recognise if it was becoming a religion for me? I already meet the definition by following the pursuit "with great devotion". Moreover, like many others , I see it as a system capable of addressing universal questions - some, at least. Running is also emotional, and can get deep. I've already mentioned how at the marathon finishing zone I met other runners upset over the training investment not yielding desired results. I felt my own struggles - betrayed by my now dog-eared training log, thumbed through over and over as if it would cede answers (is it enough? will I get injured?) like an oracle. This seems like semi-religious behaviour. I might be saved from more of it because I literally cannot afford to take limit-pushing risks, not having the means for physic...

Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man [devotes] himself to his life with reverence in order to give it true value. ... At the same time the man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give to every will to live the same reverence for life that he gives to his own. - Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought Today was race day! I met some really wonderful people. But let's get into the 'race': When I finally found the 4:00 pacer, which was my goal marathon pace based on my training, I discovered 10k later, so at 30k, that today was not my day. I finished 10 minutes off - but before I knew that, as I approached the final uphill, I had a completely unexpected sensation of being exactly where I was meant to be today. Up until that point, I had made a firm commitment to just keep 'running', which felt more like a generous walk, so I was not anticipating a positive outcome, though I definitely put through the motions what I've lea...

I've adopted a flagrant blogging style here, publishing first drafts that are edited later, which must be conspicuous, like yesterday when I was hazardously and unsuccessfully attempting Woolfian extended syntax. Despite that, however, I suddenly found in the short interim that I have become fond of this blogging outlet, and out of fondness came a wish to improve. I changed the blog layout and labels, and plan to be more careful with the Publish button. I will now swiftly draw a parallel between the bid to prettify a blog written on the fly and the beautifying techniques that the conscientious runner soon finds necessary during training blocks. What happens to the toes?! as one is merely breezing past the scenery, picking one's feet up just a little faster... Hopefully, that parallel highlighted a dilemma: the earnest pursuit can, at moments, mangle one's mien, until just enough practice is gained to maintain it again. When it comes to maintaining those material toes fro...

Ten days ago, I got a gift of a bottle of Pocari Sweat from a really nice person, which I took on the only training run I got done at that time. A little gesture can cultivate courage, as in, a wish again to find that ever-surprising abundance that nourishes but only in the everyday, which doesn't last forever, and can only be accessed by making something anew, investing effort yet again, something like the sign of being alive, day after day, this thing that we create that doesn't begin as something material but can materialise. The opposite of doubt. Doubt, that poison that comes from others through a look, through incomprehensibility over why something is to be pursued just for the sake of it; doubt from the internalised reason behind such thoughts: because who wants to find themselves astray, alone in a land of pipe dreams (where such are produced by opiates, so tragic)? Who, with a rational mind, can explain "for the sake of it"? Have courage, man! This is what I...

Yesterday, in a pocket-hour of warm air, I was reminded of my spring running lament: is one really a vegan when one inhales gnat sandwiches? The absurdity of that thought of a bug diet was not unlike a sign for a neighbour I read on my return to my building: "Crazy woman! Stop throwing cacti about the building! Clean up that mess." (Indeed, we all heard a moment of anger and something being jettisoned in the early hours...but, a cactus?!) It's the element of the unexpected that's the theme of this running post. Last time I wrote, I was sure sick days off were going to ruin my running gains. As it is, for over a week now, several minutes have been shaved off my time per mile, without my trying since I try to execute "easy days easy". It's unexpected. I also noted that even though I thought that I'd finished getting all the new fancy muscle through just running, I keep visibly gaining muscle. I keep planning to add in strength work, but up to now, I ...

There is an old story from the monasteries in the Eastern church that tells of an abbot who had lived a chaste life but who, on his death bed, was visited by the devil who complimented him on his achievements, to which the abbot, instead of saying, thanks be to God's great mercy, took the compliment for himself, and so, the story goes, lost his soul in the final moment after an entire life of spiritual exploits and accomplishments. The story has been on my mind because I was reminded again this week that the battle is daily, and it is never like one will wake up on this earth and get to say, good on me for that final victory, now, let me rest on my laurels! After a surprise day of full-on sun shininess, today the rain came bringing with it that special silence that is so nice to run in, conducive, too, to the philosophical mantle I have put on (in case you didn't notice from the previous paragraph) since last week when I sequested myself in my version of sick bay for a few day...

The last two posts left draft to Publish kind of like how on sinister mornings, it feels great to start a long run a little fast, until it is no longer the beginning, and we poor sloggers reenact a solo version of the Muppets', " Trudge trudge, streaka streaka ". Things happen, we move on, and edit, if we can. I'd love to be able to edit my running - or even understand it. There can be streaks of days where I slow down: today's run was meant to be a mere 20 miles with over half at marathon pace: it was all I could do to just finish it, though, *clears throat: today began as "a sinister morn'". These have been strange days: in this little city, things have been exploded underground; the pollution count has been "very dangerous"; many mornings begin with a thick fog that brings icicles to the trees which during a long run melt into hail while eyelashes freeze then shed water like tears. It has been hard to keep up with the training plan, a...

Last night, I looked at the google stats for this blog before writing (so low, it can't be limboed!) and decided to persist in writing, as one persists in running - towards finish lines of achievement currently out of sight, hopefully. Since the ice began to thaw, there have been many sights to marvel at. I've included a few below. First, the ice that had kept me off my regular route for over a month was real, as you might imagine from this image: Swans had been relegated to tiny pools of melted water, and boats were stuck in ice. I had left the treadmill as soon as it was possible to reach these views. The wind has been pre-gale force: warranting the one red pennant that would warn small vessels from setting out, as if they could. I learned something from those birds that somehow remained in flight during these blustery days: they also struggle, but convey something of the normalcy of the intense effort required at challenging times. The activity of birds can re...