The Secret Sharer

sillitoe's 'loneliness....

the loneliness of the long distance runner by alan sillitoe
I just read this story over the weekend and it has made me rethink a lot of my views about running. Not that I have been doing a lot of running lately, but it got the thinking juices going. Because thats what the story is, a kid in a boys home running and thinking. Instead of describing it, I think Ill let the excerpt do the talking for me:

By the time Im half-way through my morning course, when after a frost-bitten dawn I can see a phlegmy bit of sunlight hanging from the bare twigs of beech and sycamore, and when Ive measured my half-way mark by the short-cut scrimmage down the steep bush-covered bank and into the sunken lane, when theres not a soul in sight and not a sound except the neighing of a piebald foal in a cottage stable I cant see, I get to thinking the deepest and daftest of all. The governor would have a fit if he could see me sliding down a bank because I could break my neck or ankle, but I cant do it because its the only risk I take and the only excitement I ever get, flying flat-out like one of them pterodactyls from the Lost World I once heard on the wireless, crazy like a cut-balled cockerel, scratching myself to bits and almost letting myself go but not quite. Its the most wonderful minute because theres not one thought or word or picture or anything in my head while Im going down. Im empty, as empty as I was before I was born, and I dont let myself go, I suppose because whatever it is thats farthest down inside me dont want me to die or hurt myself bad. And its daft to think deep, you know, because it gets you nowhere, though deep is what I am when Ive passed this half-way mark because the long-distance run of an early morning makes me think that every run like this is a life a little life, I know but a life as full of misery and happiness and things happening as you can ever get really around yourself and I remember that after a lot of these runs I thought that it didnt need much know-how to tell how a life was going to end once it had got well started.

Now what I like about this passage is that it is all about freedom of mind and body, what I think running is all about. Running isnt about adding up miles every week or personal bests or any of that other rubbish, its about being able to let yourself be empty, a vessel just going forward on its own steam allowing the mind to wander. Running shouldnt be done on some grid system like they prescribe for you in Runners World, it should be done for enjoyment and not the enjoyment you get from completing some goal. Let it be about pleasure and not another one of life's many tests.

posted by moor-rambler @ 6:02 AM