Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
There’s a book called “What I talk about when I talk about running”. I think it’s by a Japanese author; I could be wrong. I tried reading it several times, mostly because I should. I love running and I love others who love running, and the author was Japanese. Very high brow. I just couldn’t quite turn my attention to someone else’s story of the long miles – it just wasn’t interesting. But I have often wondered what my own running story was.
As I sit here nursing a very painful shoulder (which has a date with a heat pack very shortly), as I as I try to ignore the guilt I am, again, lugging about from missing all but one training session this week (said guilt is probably sitting on said shoulder), and as I flex my right toes in and out in a vain attempt to loosen my plantar for tomorrow’s race, I wonder why I love running so much. Because, like writing, it sucks. It hurts. I’m either waiting for the pain to start, or waiting for it to stop. I fail more often than I pass. I can’t remember the last time I exceeded expectations since the glory days of 2007 when we used to go for a quick 15(km) run before coffee, when I was first to arrive at the 5am run meets, and I effortlessly inched my way towards my first marathon. Nowadays, bits chafe. Toe nails bruise and then fall off. Other bits cramp, strain, blister, fail. I’ve never been Good again.
Running sucks.
And I’m an addict.
Aren’t I?
I read once that users of crystal meth only have one amazing high, and that’s the very first time they take it it’s like a sexualised, slash euphoric, pleasure; so glorious and fulfilling that they create a self-harming career trying to recreate that first time.
Except here’s the catch. You get one, and only one, first time. That’s it. Game over. It will never ever be the same again. Even if you double the dose every week until it kills you.
Now I’ve never been a user of meth (red wine is my drug/carb of choice) but that sounds VERY MUCH LIKE my running.
Why am I still running? Am I really in a committed relationship with the love of my life? Or am I a meth user trying to recreate that first time when the pleasure was so great that I can still feel it almost 10 years later? Am I addicted to the idea of what running was, or could be? Am I just chasing the high (while nursing another twinge of ITBS)?
Because when I talk about running, that’s what I’m talking about.
