Ruminations on Running

I've been incubating this post in my noggin for some time. It was inspired by a preview of Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. (Check out an excerpt on guardian.co.uk.) I'm a huge fan of Murakami's surreal, quirky, often jarring narratives, and I had no idea until seeing a listing for this book in a Borders email that he was a distance runner. A long distance runner. Very cool. Very inspiring.

In his review of the book in the August issue of Austin Fit (click the Life link to access the review), Reynard Seifart mentions Murakami's (and probably many a runner's) mantra: "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." That mantra, Gentle Reader, may strike you absurd, cliche, oversimplified or whatever, but you can't dismiss the truth of it. We all experience pain. How we choose to deal with that pain--whether we rise above it and accept it as another sensation among the multitude of sensations we experience in our lives or whether or choose to wallow in it and wrap ourselves in it and thereby become limited by it and thus delve into that which we call suffering--is our choice.

This mantra now has become one of the many things I think about when I'm running. Yes, Gentle Reader, I admit it: I'm no Zen runner. Being in motion in my running shoes with my arms and legs pumping is no meditative act. Contemplative, yes. Meditative? No. If I want to meditate, I'll get out my zafu (and I do hope one day to resume my meditation practice) and sit a spell. But not when I'm on the treadmill.

Since several people have asked me how the hell I can run for an hour or more consistently without getting bored, I thought I'd give you some insight into what keeps me entertained and on the treadmill and on my feet.

I think about that Nike commercial featuring Marion Jones (I'm pretty sure she was the star) from several years back that featured her demonstrating what she does when she's on the track (in this case, leaping hurdles). You see her take off and hear her very quickly counting to 10 then shouting, "Jump!" I seem to recall this bit repeats two or three times before she asks the audience, "What were you expecting? Shakespeare? I'm working here."

Right on, Marion. I'm working here. I'm working. Not wasting time. No, I must frequently remind myself, I don't have somewhere better to be. Yes, I have to give myself permission repeatedly to be running. Lingering Catholic guilt? Issues with self-love? Eh, whatever. I know lots of women who have struggled to give themselves permission to do the things they love to do that help them stay sane.

I think about how I'm going to get through the current mile I'm running. I don't think too hard about the mile I just finished or the mile(s) I've yet to go. Here my asana practice has leaked, if you will, into my other practices. I stay focused on the here and now. I listen to my breath and adjust it when I catch myself letting it get too ragged. I listen to my body and adjust my posture, my arm swing, my center of activity when I hear certain parts of my body (usually my left side) complaining about collapse or "efforting" too much.

I think about my dad's knee--the reason why I started running in the first place. I think about that boring-as-hell walk I was taking on the road out to the cemetary on a crisp early November day. I think about Pearl Jam's "Given to Fly," the song that compelled my body to move faster, to take up a jog--and to keep going.

If that song doesn't inspire you to move, especially those up tempo moments, then I recommend you spend some quite time listening to what you think is your truth and question just how true it is.

I think about my iPod and why it chooses the songs it does. I don't use playlists because I like random stimuli, so I just use the library shuffling feature. I can do this because my gym iPod only has songs I've deemed appropriate for the gym. (All my yoga music and other odd crap that I listen to are stored on another, much larger iPod whose hard drive skips when I run, thus I had to by a Flash-based model for the gym.) Sometimes my gym iPod totally understands what I need to get me through the current quarter-mile loop and onto the next and shuffles up a song that just inspires my arse to move. Sometimes, though, it shuffles up some song that threatens to break my groove. I challenge myself to "endure" the less-than-stimulating songs--it's my attempt to learn patience--but sometimes a girl's just gotta skip forward to the next shuffled-up track.

I compose future blog posts in my head. No surprise there, huh, Gentle Reader? Flowing movement inspires flowing thoughts, so running is a means to creation for me. I also occasionally incubate story ideas: both the stuff I publish--or at least used to publish when I was steadily employed--and the stuff I write only for myself and the husband--and that category doesn't include this blog, for which I think the husband is really the only reader. Sadly, I also compose to-do lists and shopping lists so that the time on the treadmill does serve some small usefulness for the greater good of the residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker.

I repeat Murakami's mantra in my head. I had to do this constantly during my run a week ago thanks to a part of my brain that wanted to bellyache (from fear) about an aching left hamstring. You're probably asking, Gentle Reader, Aren't you being a bit hypocritical when you encourage people to be mindful of their injuries and limitations and allow themselves opportunity to recover and yet push yourself to do something while injured that could be further injurious? Good question and good call, Gentle Reader. Here's another mantra of mine: Do as I say, not as I do.

All kidding aside, I continue to run even when it'd be so easy to excuse myself from it because of my aching [hamstring, QL, SI, neck, tight shoulders and chest that are constricting my breath, lack of sleep thanks to ornery cats, general malaise, etc.] because pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. I know my body well enough to know when running (or lifting weights or Spinning or kickboxing or whatever I do) would not be the wisest thing for me to do. I know my monkey mind well enough to know when it's trying to get me to shirk. I'm not a shirker.

Plus.... Well, I don't know how long I'm going to be able to run because I have various body issues as well as familial and financial commitments that could keep me from running. Dad's knee is a good example. Bum knees run in the Boeckman side of the family. I was told back in 2005 by my physical therapist that asymmetrical movements such as walking, running and spending time on the Ass-inator, were not doing my hypermobile SI any favors and that I should find other means of staying fit. Yes, the pain in my SI is very real when I don't do the things I know to do to take care of it. The fear that my SI or my knees or a new job will keep me from running is very real. Am I going to let that fear stop me? Hell no.

Sometimes I don't think at all. Instead, I watch my fellow gym rats and would-be gym rats, especially when the movie playing on the monitor outside the Cardio Cinema bites. People watching is a favorite pastime of mine (and many other writers), and what I see on the floor below me sometimes inspires posts and, sometimes, me. I admire the older men and women who are in the gym doing what they can to stay healthy and fit (unlike a certain grandmother of mine who hasn't left her bedroom for some 18 months because she's chosen to wallow and make suffering her sole purpose in life--both her own imaginary suffering and the real suffering she inflicts on the people who have to care for her sorry ass).

More often than not, though, what I see inspires cringes, moans and groans because I see some very scary stuff happening all in the name of fitness that will only inevitably lead to pain. Then again, some people don't learn what not to do until they hurt themselves doing just that. But, Gentle Reader, how many of them will truly learn their lesson?

That's a broad sweep of what rolls through my mind when the tread is rolling beneath my feet. Just for contrast, here's some of the stuff I don't think about when I run:

• Eating. Thank the FSM for small miracles on that one!
  
• Cooking. I don't even compose culinary misadventure posts in my head when I'm running.
  
• My kid. Trust me, this one's also a miracle.
  
• My job situation. I'll admit that while I've struggled with guilt for taking an hour or more to just run, I don't berate myself for taking that hour or so away from looking for work. I learned that lesson from the first time I went through a somewhat extended job search: Sitting in front of the computer combing online job board after job board day in and day out is not going to get you a job any faster. Trust me on this one, Gentle Reader.

Finding Inspiration and Being Inspiration
While all these nice, potentially inspiring thoughts roll through my head when I'm running, I'll tell you the three quests that inspire me to keep running: How can I go faster? How can I go further? How can I do this better?

Today, I got a new inspiration. A woman I'll admit whom I've never seen before (or at least noticed) was setting up her goodies for Body Pump saw me as I was heading toward the bathroom that's outside the group ex room, tapped on the window to catch my attention and beckoned me inside. She met me near the door and told me in a quiet voice, "I just wanted you to know that you are my inspiration."

Me? No, surely not. No, not possible.

"I used to see you on the Spin bikes, and you had a pear shape."

"Oh yeah, I remember that."

"Then I was away for a while--I had to have brain surgery--but when I came back, I saw you just running your heart out and..." She broke into a wide smile that was as brilliant as the light I saw shining from her eyes when I first made eye contact with her in that aerobics studio. "You'd lost your hips and you looked like you were having the time of your life even though you were working so hard. And I knew that if you could do that, I could come back from the surgery and be active again."

With those words, I knew I was going to not just run those seven miles I wanted to get in this morning: I was going to stalk them, hunt them down and make them mine.

But this woman is now a source of inspiration for me. Despite the success of her surgery, she said she's going to have to go back for another and give up all the activity she's been able to reclaim--at least for a while. So while she can't be active, I'll be active for her so that, the universe willing, I can be there for her when she comes back.

Sappy? Yeah, sure. But who cares. If you can't be touched by a fellow human, then maybe you ought to spend some quite time listening to what you think is your truth and question just how true it is.

Since I couldn't find the Nike commercial I often think about when I'm running, I'll share this one with you instead. "Instant Karma!" is one of my favorite songs to play when I'm teaching and when I'm running. Yeah, it sucks that this song is shilling expensive shoes and other gear made in factories with questionable conditions. But, hey, we all shine on. Just remember that.