Running To The End Of The Rainbow

The other day I was introduced to a veteran runner. Our initial conversation was about running but pretty soon it progressed to other aspects of our lives. The veteran runner visits people with dementia and talks to them for two hours. He told me they are often in care homes and receive no visitors and his visit may be the only conversation they have all week outside of professional nurses and care workers giving them instructions.

He then told me two things about his visits that I think might hold the answer as to what I am trying to achieve with my running. First of all the conversations with the people suffering with dementia often “go nowhere” they are full of non-sequesters, random thoughts and streams of consciousness. Second, while the conversations may last up to two hours, invariably fifteen minutes after the conversation has ended the person will not even remember they happened.

By the way we usually measure achievement my fellow runner’s visits and conversations do not seem to achieve anything; a conversation that often makes no sense that is almost instantly forgotten. He told me this “lack” of achievement is possibly the hardest aspect of his work. 

But what he has grown to realise is that for two hours in the week the dementia sufferer is connecting to another person and feels engaged in the world. If he didn’t visit them they would either be sat in front of a TV or possibly even in their beds starring at the ceiling trapped in their own minds.

I’m not sure if my conversation with the veteran runner “achieved” anything but it did make me think.

As a runner least once a month I ask myself some form of the the following questions:

“What’s the point or my running?”

“Why do I subject myself to the ordeal of running?”

“Why do I regularly get up at 6am on a weekend and run for two to three hours?”

“Why do I regularly forego some of the more fun aspects of life?”

“Why am I punishing myself?”

At the root of these questions is one simple question - What on earth am I trying to achieve?

I am in my forties, I’m reasonably good but I will never be a great runner. I will never be an Olympian. I doubt I will even ever win a race for my age range. Running will never bring me a source of income. It will not help my career in anyway. If I was doing it for health benefits I could reap all the same benefits by running half the amount I do. And finally if I was trying to lose weight I suspect I should concentrate a little more on my diet and a lot less on my split times.

Every other activity I undertake with this level of intensity and commitment I have a clear goal in mind to somehow better my life. So what exactly am I trying to achieve by running all the time? 

The fact is at its best running is like the conversations my veteran running friend has with the dementia patients. My best runs are not trying to achieve anything. My best runs are not when I am trying to achieve a certain time or working towards an upcoming race. My best runs are when I am simply running to run. 

The achievement is the run itself and when the run is done the achievement and goal is over. Just how the dementia conversation’s value is in the act of the conversation itself and when the conversation is over the achievement is over. 

All too often the achievements I am pursuing are like the illusionary pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that I am constantly chasing but will never reach.

What running and my veteran running friend’s experience teaches me is often the achievements, purpose and happiness we seek are with us right now if only we learn to live more in the moment.

Quality Vs Quantity - The Runner's Dilemma?

Quality versus quantity. Which do you choose?

In almost every walk of modern life the sophisticated, intelligent answer is always "quality".

I often sit through work meetings where people wheel out trite phrase such as "we should focus on the quality not the quantity" as if they have said something new and profound. And everyone in the meeting nods knowingly.

Who aspires to be the "bargain basement" piling them high and flogging them cheap? Everyone wants to be that "quality" product that everyone else admires, wants to be and buy.

My recent marathon training has caused me to question this accepted wisdom and I'm starting to think it's all about quantity.

On Saturday I ran 30km, on Friday I ran a fast timed 5km and the day before that I ran a half marathon in training. According to the running schedule I downloaded from a sports website I am meant to run between 70 and 80 kilometres every week between now and my marathon in April, some weeks I'm even meant to run over 90 kilometres. Mo Farah is famously meant to run 120 miles a week when in training.

A large part of distance running training is all about quantity.

Far from quality being in opposition to quantity, the latter is not achievable without the former. Quantity leads to quality. The more you do anything the better you become and the more likely you will be able to achieve the best quality.

Now I know what you're thinking; there's a difference between "training quantity" and "performance   quality".

In my experience the more half marathons I run in training as close to race conditions as possible the better my marathon times when I finally race for real. Also when I think about other examples in life quality seems to be predicated on quantity. Two of the greatest jazz musicians that ever lived; John Coltrane and Miles Davis were prolific in their output often producing several albums a year. I doubt they would have been able to create the masterpieces they created if they hadn't constantly been performing, recording and honing their skills. (The Spice Girls only ever recorded three albums - a cheap shot I know but I doubt anyone will be listening to 2 become 1 in forty years time the way they listen to Coltrane's Love Supreme today).

So next time I'm in a work meeting and I start hearing someone talking about doing "less but with greater impact" or "we want quality not quantity" I think I'll just start humming "Viva Forever" and ask them if they want to join me on a work-lunch run.

(The picture today is of just a few of John Coltrane's albums a clear example where quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive)

The Art Of Running (or lessons in running by Chris Ofili)

The other day I was at an African wedding reception in London and I saw the internationally renowned artist Chris Ofili there. (Don’t worry that is the end of the name dropping).

As I was collecting my coat from the cloakroom at the end of the night Chris was also there with his wife collecting their belongings. We'd met a couple of years ago, and after a quick catch up we ended up talking about one of his pictures.

In 2011 he painted a picture that deeply resonated with me; “For The Unknown Runner”. It was a commission as a poster for the London 2012 Olympics and shows a runner on an ancient Greek type vase with the spectators just represented as colourful spots in the background. In Ancient Greece sporting achievement was often depicted on these types of vases as well as representing various gods and mythical creatures.

I first found out about the picture through twitter and I now have a print of “For The Unknown Runner” hanging in my kitchen. Not a day goes by when I don’t look at it and enjoy it, which is why, at the risk of embarrassing Chris with my love of his work, I told him how much his picture means to me. 

The primary reason I love it is because it marries two aspects of my identity that often seem mutually exclusive – my black British identity and my running identity. I’ve written previously about the lack of ordinary fellow black distance runners when I do marathons and other races. As a black British artist Chris Ofili’s work often speaks to my black British identity. For example his piece “No Woman No Cry” is a tribute to Doreen Lawrence and her fight for justice for her murdered son Stephen Lawrence a seminal moment in black British history (as well as race relations as a whole).

And so when Ofili turns his hand to painting a runner I feel I no longer have to place these two aspects of my character into different silos. It can be part of black British culture in just the same way as his other work is.

The title “For The Unknown Runner” serves to give me further ownership of this beautiful piece of work. At first the title didn’t seem to make sense to me because this was a commission for the London Olympics and Olympian athletes are far from unknown, Ofili has gone on record previously saying that the figure was based on a picture of Usain Bolt possibly the most famous known athlete in the world.

But in a typically egotistical way I now interpret the picture not to be of an Olympian but of myself or everybody who runs.

When I run a marathon I am running my own private Olympics. To 99.9% of the spectators I am the “unknown runner”, (thanks for cheering me on mum - the 0.1%), and the spectators are nothing more to me than the colourful spots in the pictures background. But in my mind I am running to glory. I am achieving my own super human feat worthy of any Ancient Greek Olympian vase.

As I tried to express all this to Chris Ofili, through the haze of a little bit too much wedding reception alcohol, the complexity of all those thoughts ended up as “I love your picture ‘The Unknown Runner’ it really inspires me”. And after graciously thanking me, he explained how he too likes to run and how it really serves to clear his head.

Once again I learn that running can fuel great achievements (such as Ofili's art), but possibly more importantly I learnt I have more in common with one of Britain’s greatest living artists than I ever realised.

(The picture today is of Chris Ofili's "For The Unknown Runner". If you want to see Chris talk about painting the picture there is a great short film here. Also thanks to my twitter friend @GoFeetBlog who first told me about the picture)

Running with Buddha

When I was in my early twenties I used to teach maths to African-Caribbean children at a Saturday morning supplementary school - the Mandela Free School (it was originally called the Winnie Mandela Free School but that’s another story). The school was a grassroots effort to address some of the failings that the education system had in educating young black children, failings that seem to continue to this day.  

As a teacher I discovered young children learn best if you give them the information in more than one sensory experience. They learn about fractions far better if they can physically cut up the cake. Lego was a brilliant tool when I was trying to teach them abstract concepts in physics. The technical term for this is “multi-sensory learning”.

I bring this up because I’m finding that I’m now re-discovering this truth about learning - not with children but about myself. 

Running is that extra sensory information.

There are abstract philosophical concepts that I’m either only now beginning to grasp or getting a deeper understanding of because of my marathon running and training. It seems that every time I learn something new about about marathon running I discover parallels with philosophical teachings about life.

Take the concept of of the “Middle Way” in Buddhism. At it’s most basic it is about avoiding extremes - plotting a path of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification. According to Buddha this was the path of wisdom bringing you to enlightenment.

Not being a Buddhist myself I think I understood the idea in theory but it didn’t chime with my reality. I always thought my greatest achievements were achieved through extremes. Pushing myself to my limits. 

For me the “Middle Way” was wonderful if you wanted to have a “nice, calm, serene life”, but not great if you wanted to be the very best you could be.

That was before I started running marathons.

Achieving your best in the marathon is all about moderation.

When you are racing it is about not going out too fast nor going off to slowly at the start.

In training it’s realising that any fool can train themselves into the ground but you have to train with moderation. Not adding too many miles in a week but not doing too few. The best marathon runners even recognise they can’t even concentrate too much on running and need to add cross training into the schedule (I currently try and swim or do yoga at least once a week).

The “Big Push” might be great in a sprint but then you come crashing down. Extremes might seem to work as you cram for an exam but short-term memory does not make you wise in the long run.

Marathon running is life. Time and again it is the physical embodiment of my thinking. It puts the flesh on my abstract philosophical thinking and enriches it.

The ultimate paradox of marathon running, and life, is when you see someone achieving the impossible and seemingly pushing themselves to the extreme they usually got their through moderation.

The new year - 2014 - is just over two weeks old and I’ve just started my training for the Boston Marathon in April. I have a feeling there will be a few more philosophical insights I’ll be learning as I grind out the miles over the coming months - but always in moderation of course! 

(The picture today is of people being the best they can be through moderation at the Cannes Semi-Marathon)

Running After Schrödinger's Cat

Last week I started training for my next marathon in four and a half months time. The first month will consist of hill training and strength workouts (a lot of stomach and glutes work) and then I'll start my serious running with three months to go.

I find the hill training incredibly hard. I set a 30-minute hill programme on the treadmill in my local gym that I cannot complete and every week I try and do an extra minute or an extra hill before I collapse. The aim is to build up my strength slowly and by the end of six weeks or so I can finish it.

This morning I was able to complete 22 minutes of the 30-minute hill programme, by this afternoon my leg muscles (quads and glutes specifically) were still aching. And that is when I had my small philosophical break through:

Running can explain the theory of Schrödinger’s cat and quantum physics.

First, the confession. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy who can get to grips with most theories and philosophical concepts in popular culture. I understand “Ockham’s Razor” and I can even bluff my way through a little discussion on Plato and the "Theory of Forms". But when it comes to Schrödinger’s cat in quantum physics I feel like a five year old trying to drive a car.

For those that don’t know Schrödinger’s cat is a way of illustrating (or disproving, depending on your point of view) the concept in quantum physics that “a particle exists in all states at once until observed”. Physicist Erwin Schrödinger created a thought experiment with a cat in a sealed box with some poison. In theory the cat is both alive and dead at the same time as long as the box remains sealed and is only alive or dead once the box is opened and you can look into the box. (For a more comprehensive explanation of the mind experiment click here).

This never made sense to me - that is until this afternoon and I was feeling my poor aching muscles.

Following hill training my muscles are weaker. For the couple of hours, and possibly even days, after a particularly grueling work out if I tried to do the same hill training I would be slower and be able to do considerably less than the 22 minutes I have been able to do so far. But I am also aware that following a hard work out I will become faster after a while.

This evening as I type this blog post my leg muscles are like Schrödinger’s cat in the box. I do not know if they are weaker or stronger than they were 24 hours ago. I don’t know if I would be able to run less or more than 22 minutes if I stepped on to the treadmill and attempted my hill programme. I feel my legs are both weaker and stronger at the same time. It's as if I’ve finally grasped the famous thought experiment because I’ve taken it out of the classroom and can literally feel it physically.

The next time I go to the gym, I will discover if my legs are weaker or stronger. I will be the scientist lifting the lid on the sealed box and finding out if the cat is alive or dead.

(The picture today is of a cute cat I found on the internet... Aside from a vague link to the blog post it is a blatant attempt to attract more readers).

The Joy of Accidental Yoga

I want to like yoga.

I feel it is the kind of activity that a mature, sophisticated cultured man should embrace.

Modern renaissance men are meant to be well travelled, multi-lingual, be able to cook and at least once a week greet the dawn with a Sun Salutation.

But try as I might I have not been able to get into yoga. As someone who is not naturally flexible I do not find it enjoyable in the slightest. And before someone emails me and tells me that the flexibility will come with practice I have been trying to touch my toes all my life and haven't been able to do so since the age of 19!

I have not been able to enjoy the meditative calm that yoga is meant to provide, the quiet nirvana. Instead yoga has just meant sessions of discomfort and pain that can never be over quick enough.

But a year ago something happened.

I was running in New York in Central Park when all of a sudden I felt a shooting pain in my left knee, the pain eventually went and I was up and running again in a week. When I came back to the UK I went for a sports massage and told the masseur about the incident. She gave me a stretch to do that involved me lying face down on the floor with one leg straight out and the other bent underneath me.

Then a few months later my IT band felt tight and a physiotherapist gave me an exercise involving me lying on my back and then raising my backside to form an arch.

After that I did the Edinburgh marathon and created small but painful muscle tears in my lower stomach and another physio gave me another set of exercises.

By the end of this summer after every run I was doing a series of stretches I'd collected along the way. I was finding it a relaxing way to unwind after strenuous exercise and it was bringing me real calm.

But it wasn't until I was doing these stretches after a run with my wife that the penny dropped:

I was doing yoga and enjoying it.

The first "stretch" I'd learnt after NYC was a variation of the "pigeon pose" according to my wife, then she showed me how my sprinters stretch was a "half warrior", my "arch" stretch was a "bridge". Finally I was practically doing a sun salutation at the start of every session as I reached down to try and touch my toes and my stretch at the end was a "cobra"!

I now wonder why I've always hated yoga but found myself accidentally loving it at the same time.

My best guess is I'd always struggled with yoga because I was trying to get the "poses" right and feeling a failure as I couldn't contort my body into the correct forms. But when I'm stretching after I run I am just letting my body do whatever comes naturally. A stretch can feel good, but a pose for an inflexible person like myself can feel like torture.

And then there's the meditative yoga nirvana. As any buddhist I am sure will tell you, no one ever reached nirvana by trying to reach nirvana. By taking away the pressure to reach an inner and higher bliss I actually started to enjoy myself.

I might not be a yoga master (accidental or otherwise) as the title of this post suggests. But I did accidentally find myself discovering the joys of yoga. Oh and for all the runners reading this post it has made me a better runner as well.

(The picture today is of my wife and I doing a sun salutation before a 10k race)

Stop Counting The Miles

I often run with my Iphone strapped to my arm. My phone has an app which monitors how fast and far I run as well as recording my route. Today at the end of my run the app flashed 4,000km.

I don’t always run with my phone so the 4,000km is a low figure - but seeing the Nike app register 4,000km felt like a significant landmark.

To be honest since showering and getting changed out of my sweaty sporty clothes I'm slightly surprised at the level of satisfaction it gave me.

But my running app and my satisfaction at clocking 4,000km points to a wider phenomenon. I am beginning to think that for many of us it is no longer a case of “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) or even "curro ergo sum" (the runner’s fun take on the famous philosophical pronouncement - I run therefore I am). No, for many of us we are living a quantified life. I measure therefore I am.

If a phenomenon or event is not measured and recorded it is almost as if it didn’t happen. The very act of measurement seems to give an event meaning. Conversely not measuring an event can cause us to question the very validity of a phenomenon. Let me use the example of my running app again:

My running app records the best times I have run for 5k, 10k, half marathon and a marathon. The problem is often this feature of the running app is temperamental. It will often not actually show the best time I have run a distance in and just randomly pick one of the runs I have done over that distance. When I discovered this it really bothered me, I spent far too much time than I care to admit emailing Nike and even talking to the support team on the phone to try and rectify the problem. Why did I care so much? I know exactly what my best times are for each of those distances - I didn’t need my phone to tell me. But it was almost as if I had not run those times if it was not recorded and showing up on my phone!

I know I have actually run further than 4,000km over the last two years but it wasn’t until I saw it on my phone that I felt I’d actually achieved it.

Not only does the classic "cogito ergo sum" seem insufficient to grasp our modern lives, I feel the famous philosophical question of; “if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it does it make a sound?” is now inadequate. The sound of the tree crashing down no longer exists even if an army of people hear it, if you haven’t measured it's volume on your phone, filmed it and hopefully uploaded it to YouTube.

Running at its best connects me with my inner self and the natural world around me. Running should be pure existential joy where you are experiencing the moment as it happens. Checking my running app after a run and taking satisfaction from its measurement saying “4,000km” couldn’t be further from living in the moment.

The Ancient Romans saw the dangers of trying to measure life as demonstrated by the famous poem by Catullus when he wrote: 

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred.

Then, another thousand, and a second hundred.

Then, yet another thousand, and a hundred.

Then, when we have counted up many thousands,

Let us shake the abacus,so that no one may know the number,

And become jealous when they see

How many kisses we have shared.

I believe the poet is telling us true joy only starts when measurement becomes meaningless.

I will continue to run with my Iphone and running app but I will strive to remember that it is the running that matters not the record of my run. 

And like the kisses in Ancient Rome the real joy in running only starts when we “shake the abacus” and measurement ends. 

(The photograph speaks for itself - it is a screen shot of my iphone displaying 4,000km)