Why I Run

I went for a run today. I was away on business in Berlin and I took my shoes with me in the hope of doing what I can now do a measure of.

I stepped out of the hotel and headed to the corner of the park.

I’m thirty eight and I realise a lot of things about myself which I didn’t see or admit to before.

I sometimes don’t express myself clearly in conversation because I have too many ideas and a dozen ways to explain each of them.

If we ever got drunk together you’d notice there’s a sweet spot on the way there where I loosen up enough to talk freely and manage six strands of what I’m talking about. It’s pretty incredible and I don’t say that in an immodest way because most people find it annoying as hell. Also, it only lasts about twenty minutes until the lubrication floods the engine and I can’t string six words together, let alone topics.

It’s a terrible trait, but I know I need to be loved more than I care to provide it.

I believe in signs and karma but not in fate, because while someone thinks some cosmic bollocks about the universe rewarding them for being a good person with their satnav gyroscopic moral compass, some other perfectly decent schmoe is getting screwed by an event they didn’t deserve.

I also know why I run. I run because I can. I can because I do. I run because it makes me see a problem as a challenge.

Today I felt I could have outrun myself at any stage of my life. I felt I could outrun the me everyone thought they knew.

I started off steady at 7am – I had mapped the route at home and I knew it would be a long one. I was going to be in Germany for five days and would be busy for all of it, working from 9am until 2 the next day with no time to see the city except from my running shoes or a taxi window. The glamour of journalism, I know, but I wanted to look around.

I ran alongside the north edge of the fence, cutting in every now and then where children had worn paths in the bushes for free glimpses of the animals. I waved to a toucan. I padded alongside a wallaby. I could smell them, silent and still against the morning.

Past the zoo, the park opened up and I jogged alongside Strasse Des 17 Juni – a little late, technically, but I had made it and I ran 4.6 miles, stopping only to take this picture:

That’s the Brandenburg Gate, homes.

I run because I don’t want to regret having not done it. I feel like crying when I think that I should have done more stuffed animal puppet shows with my kids when they were still really young.

They loved those shows. They were dumb and fun and I couldn’t always be bothered, but when I did them the kids would be in fits. They would giggle like they were in on the joke and surprised at the same time and we won’t get that back – it’s just gone and I don’t think I’m going to be able to cope too well with many of those regrets.

This was the greatest run of my life. There will be others.

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Link: Running. I Can Do That Now.