Sit up September

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

The great thing about running is that you don't have to necessarily run faster or longer to get the fabled runners' high. Sometimes it sneaks up on you totally unexpected; and like unexpected sex, a sneaky run can be an equally blissful experience. Such was today's run.

Today's run was in fact completely unplanned, but after a restless night I awoke to a blocked toilet, bad news on the radio and generally crap weather. By late morning I was fed up and the idea just popped into my head to go for a run. So I donned the running shoes and leaped on to the (now repaired) treadmill, set it at cruise mode (ie slow, flat) and jogged off into a Sisyphusian sunset, with no idea how far I would go, nor much care about it either.

Being such a miserable day I selected as album du jour U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, principally for its ironic opening track Beautiful Day.

Now I have to say that to my mind the first four tracks on the album: Beautiful Day, Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of, Elevation and Walk On are four outstanding running classics and regularly get played by me while running. However today not even Walk On which is one of my very best liked running songs was working for me*.

Track 5 is Kite, and far from flying high I was really struggling and wondering if I'd even make it to the 30 minute mark. And in my mind I had a bit of a battle. It was a fight between thinking that as this was an unscheduled run, 20 minutes was 20 minutes more than planned and nothing to be ashamed of, and the other idea that if I gave up, the next run was going to be damnably difficult to find motivation for. And I decided to struggle on, knowing that the bad periods nearly always fade if I just persist. And so the 30 minute mark came and went, and the slower tracks actually helped me find some rhythm. Before I knew it I was cruising along reasonably comfortably and then almost out of the blue, the final track (the wonderfully hypnotic Grace) came to an end and I did something completely out of left field. I kind of watched myself do it really, as if from afar. I turned the record over and dropped the needle back on track 1 (metaphorically of course) and played the album again.

This time the opening tracks really got me going. 60 minutes came and went and I was still cruising, happy and content. The 10km mark went past with no trouble and then it dawned on me that two plays of the album was very nearly 100 minutes, the point at which the treadmill decides that enough is enough and auto-shuts down, deaf to any protestations from the mere owner. And that's what I did... ran through the album twice on a supposed rest day. True I only covered a little over 13km, but this was my longest run in months, and being quite out of the blue I am more than happy with that.

A towel-down, a cool isotonic and one of my special salmon/tofu/yoghurt salads** and I was floating very happily around the house in complete contrast to my mood when I first jumped on the machine. Thank you running world, thank you U2.

We keep saying it because it's true - running really is the answer.

Album du jour:All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2 (2000)
Track du jour: Walk On




*It's rather ironic that two of my all time favourite tracks to run to are actually walking songs - this one by U2 and The Stranglers' cover of Walk On By...

**You probably need to go for a nice long run to properly appreciate how good this actually is.