Post Almeria
It's the day after returning from Almeria. I'm standing in my son and daughter-in-law's Wimbledon flat, looking out the window at the bleak winter weather and waiting for the central heating to kick in. It's cold, it's grey and very, very bleak. The world beyond the double glazing could hardly seem more depressing. The bare trees, the dank, damp lumpy winter grass and the oh so early dusk fuel my melancholy mood. Tomorrow we fly to Sri Lanka for a brief family holiday in the warmth and exotica of a place so unlike this vision of bleakness that it seems implausible that it could even exist.
There's a strange and strong dichotomy about winter in England. For me it's the worst kind of cold - not properly cold like you get in the polar regions or high in the mountains, but the awful cold of a world that's waiting for warmth to return; marking time until flowers bloom and the sun shines strong and warm once more. But that's a long way off yet. In the garden I can see a child's playset that sits awkwardly vibrant of colour but as dormant and as untouched as the trees. It'll be many weeks, perhaps, before it hears the laughter of a child at play again.
And yet, this bone-seeping cold is also the best kind of cold, as it's this bleak, depressing climate that also produces the magical landscape of the Lake District or the Sussex Downs. It's this frigid, unwelcoming environment that also presents a challenge so many runners happily accept: go and run there, and you'll get to see what others don't. Just as the cold and the damp shapes the landscape, so it moulds the runner's soul; the harshness of the country being an inverse expression of the gentle massaging of your inner self.
We speak of the loneliness of the long distance runner, and yet we run because we know we're never really alone. The company we keep may seem to others to be just a conglomeration of bleak hills and vast empty tracts of nothingness, but we as runners know that there's magic in the landscape, and it speaks a language that strengthens the spirit, tones the flesh and clears the mind. Nothing else in my experience can do all three.
I've spent much of the day writing my Almeria race report, but I'm not especially happy with it. Never mind, I'll let it be for now. I think what I failed to convey was the essential essence that running brings and which builds community among a group of runners such as ourselves. Of course many other activities can achieve something similar, and yet running somehow has an extra dimension. I don't know what it is exactly, and perhaps it's too intangible to convey in easy language, but staring out the window today it seemed to me that, like the landscape through which we run, the nature of running is itself a pure expression of all that's right about humanity and worthy of pursuit in a world of otherwise increasing shallowness.
Whatever it is that moved me to write this, it's very much tied up in all of you: whether you were in Almeria or not it doesn't matter. As runners, ex runners or even just someone with an interest in running, it's a bond we all share, and it's brilliant.
Thank you.
Fab Fun Feb
