Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Why? Why? WHY?

It's getting on for three in the morning after a long day of sending off invoices (okay, an invoice), playing far too much World of Warcraft (Rock is now a level 19 paladin, no less) and latterly, in the silence of the middle of the night, working a bit on my Mac mail server project thing. The necessary bits to do mail scanning for viruses and other nasties are proving to be easy to install once, but harder to script...

Also today, I went for a run. I go for a run most days - my current attempt at bringing myself to a sensible level of training is to run five days on then one day off, although recently the blocks have been shorter as I've been taking it easy due to being a little sore from some ill-advised attempts to run faster. While a 3:52 kilometre was nice, it certainly made me remember it the next day.

Today the weather was generally 'orrible - there was hail, snow and rain in Surbiton and the aftermath was yet another cold, damp, dark evening with a bitter wind. Even in winter I usually just run in a technical T-shirt and a pair of lycra shorts, which is always good for astonished looks from the folk who seem to wear their entire wardrobe (they must be melting inside all of that), but made the decision today given the weather to wear my long running tights instead. Yup, it was that cold. While thawing out in the shower afterwards, I found myself asking "Why exactly do I do this? I mean, I make myself go out and run round the depths of Surbiton and Kingston in the cold and in the dark. Afterwards my legs often hurt. So why do I do this? I could just as easily stay at home and work on important things, like dinging level 20 with Rock."

This is a very good question which nobody's ever been able satisfactorily to answer. There are plenty of new-age type folk out there who'll tell you earnestly that the reason they run is "Because out there on the road is where you really discover who you are", or "Because it's just yourself against your body, and if you can overcome your body you can overcome anything". Well, great, yes, but out there on the road I always discover who I am - a thirty-something computer nerd with, all too often, sore feet. Now that that's sorted and I know who I am, how about the other one? Well, it's not really me against my body either. I need at least some co-operation from my body or I wouldn't get round, right? I know what your body not co-operating feels like and if it doesn't want to run, it just won't run.

Other people will tell you about the well-known phenomenon of the "runner's high", that cheery little burst of endorphins which is supposed to appear when you're running particularly well and which is supposed to contribute to the addictive qualities of running. That's fine too, but believe me - when it's 8:30pm, the temperature's about -2C with windchill and your feet hurt the last thing you're likely to experience is the runner's high.

In the end I came to the conclusion that I do it because being able to run faster than other people is fun, and because getting a little exercise in lets me eat just about anything I want with impunity as well as being able to feel justified in sitting on my bum all day in front of a computer. And, finally, for some weird reason I just enjoy it. I don't dare tell anyone about that, though, because those reasons don't sound nearly new-age enough. Sorry.

Posted by mpk at February 22, 2005 3:15 AM | TrackBack