Like many, I discovered running quite by accident. It was in 1969, while training for rowing, that I started running regularly. But during those years, I seldom ran more than twice a week and never for more than 25 minutes. Until one day in 1971 when, for no logical reason, I decided to run for an hour. That run was absolutely decisive. For during that run I finally discovered the sport for which I had been searching. At school I had been taught that sport was cricket and rugby; the pressure to conform to these sporting norms was extreme, and I was not then secure enough to question what was good for me. But my doubts about the real attraction these games held for me first started, I suppose, at age 15, when I discovered surfing. For the first time I discovered a sport in which it was possible to me completely alone. I loved it. No rules, no guidelines, no teams, no coaches, no spectators, and in those distant days, few other participants. Just me, my surfboard, my thoughts, and an almost empty ocean. In short, what I discovered in surfing was a sport in which the external human factor was almost totally removed and nothing could detract from my enjoyment.
Surfing also brought me for the first time into direct physical contact with nature and her naked, frequently stark and always awesome beauty. And I knew that it was good to be alive, and independent and vigorous, and so close to natures embrace that, in each wave, I could hear her heart beat. I found the attraction to surfing alarmingly powerful.
Later, at university, I learned to row. What I found in rowing was a team sport that demanded total dedication, physical perfection, and an acceptance of pain and discomfort. Rowing first introduced me to my need for self-inflicted pain- the special nauseating deep-seated pain that accompanies repetitive interval training and racing.
At first, I merely followed this need intuitively. Only later would I begin to suspect that it is the continual exposure to, and mastery of, that discomfort that is an essential ingredient for personal growth. And in training for rowing, I was led to running. Now, 30-odd years down the road, this book provides the opportunity to reflect on what running has meant to me.
The first way in which running has influenced my life in that it has taught me who I am and, equally important, who I am not. I learned through running that I love privacy and solitude.
I have come to accept that, in common with a good number of runners, I share the emotional and personality traits that William Sheldon ascribed to those who he called ectomorphs and whose body builds resemble those of champion distance runners. Do not, for a moment, think that I am suggesting that you might mistake my generously endowed frame for that of a champion running. Not so! Rather, I share some of the personality characteristics that Sheldon attributed to that physical group: a love of privacy, an overwhelming desire for solitude, and an inability to relax or talk in company; an over concern with physical health; typical patterns of mental behavior that include daydreaming, absentmindedness, procrastination, and an inability to make decisions. According to Sheldon, the ectormorph’s eternal quest is to understand the riddles of life.
Even if the day ever dawns in which it will not be needed for fighting the old heavy battles against nature, muscular vigor will still always be needed to furnish the background of sanity, serenity, and cheerfulness to life, to give moral elasticity to our disposition, to round off the wiry edge of our fretfulness and make us good humored and easy of approach. William James 1892
Given these characteristics, the attractions of running are obvious. For a start, it provides complete solitude. Even in the most crowded races, the point is reached when fatigue drives us back into ourselves, into those secluded parts of our souls that we discover only under times of such duress and from which we emerge with a clearer perspective of the people we truly are. Running can also allay our over concern with health by giving us evidence that we are still well. The emotional release and physical fatigue induced by running improve our sleep. And running can provide a context for looking at the world, for seeking explanation to the riddles of life.
Second, running made me newly aware of my body and of my responsibility to look after it. Having a physically improved body showed that I cared - that I had self-pride and, more important, self-discipline. Running has also given me pride in what I can get that body to do if I prepare it properly. Because, like any skill that one has acquired, the more effort that goes into its acquisition and the more difficulties overcome, the more rewarding the result.
Next I discovered that the successful completion of severe running challenges, such as finishing an ultramarathon as fast as I could, gave me the confidence to believe that, within my own limits, I could achieve whatever physical or academic target I set myself, as long as I was prepared to make the necessary effort. I learned that rewards in running, as in life, come only in direct proportion to the amount of effort I am prepared to exert, and the extent to which I can summon the required discipline and application.
Yet running also taught me a heightened degree of self-criticism and self-expectation. I realized that it is never possible to do one’s absolute best, to reach the pinnacle of absolute perfection. Beyond each academic or sporting peak there will always, indeed, must always, be another peak waiting to be tackled. Mavis Hutchinson realized this the very moment she had completed her life’s ambition - to run across North America. As she finished, she saw that she still had a lifetime ahead of her with other goals and other ambitions to achieve.
Fourth, running in competitions taught me the humility to realize my limitations and to accept them with pride, without envy of those who might have physical or intellectual gifts that I lack. While I will never run like the elite athletes described in this book, I can still devote the same effort to my more mundane talents as they do to theirs, and so attempt to derive as much pleasure and reward from running as they do.
Humility starts with modesty and self-criticism. Percy Cerruty, who knew many great athletes, wrote that the really top athletes he had coached were never superiors, insolent, or rude. Rather they were circumspect, modest, thoughtful, and anxious to acquire new knowledge, and they hated flattery. Indeed I suspect that these characteristic are essential in sport, in which success and failure are so dreadfully visible, and in which the duration of success is so ephemeral - lasting, at most, a handful of summers.
I suggest that to achieve real success in running, as in any worthwhile activity, there must always be the fear of failure; a very real fear that the day will come when we will fail, regardless of how hard we have prepared. It is that very insecurity that keeps our carefully nurtured self-confidence from becoming arrogance. And it is also in our inevitable failures that the seeds of real personal growth are sown and eventually blossom.
Fifth, running has taught me about honesty. There is, you see, no luck in running. Results cannot be faked, and there is no one but yourself to blame when things go wrong.
So running has shown me that life must be lived as a competition with oneself. It has made me appreciate what I now believe to be a very real weakness in many team and skill sports; in those sports you do not have to admit to your imperfections; there is always someone or something else to blame if you so chose.
The real competitions are those in which we test ourselves in company with others. Peter Pollock, who achieved immortality in cricket, had to run the Comrades Marathon before he could write “You have not lived in the world of competitive sport until you have fought a battle that is not against an opponent, but against yourself.”
Finally, running can teach us about our spiritual component - the aspect that makes us uniquely human. This I suspect is the need to discover and to perfect, the need to keep moving forward. Running epitomizes that struggle by teaching us that we must not stop. Paavo Nurmi wrote: “You must move, otherwise you are bound for the grave.” Arthur Newton felt similarly: “You never stay put at any stage; either you advance or slip back.” So we inherit this desire to push to the limits to find out what makes us what we are, and what is behind it all.
The rewards of doing it right are those that the runner experiences in the pre-dawn excitement at the start of any marathon: “God made a home in the sky for the sun, it comes out in the morning…..like an athlete eager to run a race.”
Tim Noakes, MD; Lore of Running
