Why bloody bother?

Why bother running? It is painful. It reminds you of your limitations. To get stronger, you have to get weaker. And, like with all things worthy of endeavour, any improvement isn't in a straight line upwards.

Today, I realised that upon waking my right foot and my lower shins absolutely let me down. They feel weak. They complain incessantly. However, after a few minutes of running they quieten. Why is that?

Also, last week I managed to train at least 6 times. Including three days in a row before this 10k. Why would I do that?

I take something spiritual in my running. That is to say, I don't often feel spiritual when I run. But it is something that I feel makes you have to look at yourself. To construct yourself in the sense of when you run, you are putting something into something. Like the way Mumford and Sons drawl, where you invest your love, you invest your life, or something like that at least.

I used to take my running a metaphor for my faith. That is, my thighs never grew tired. What would tire was my lungs or my lower legs, or my feet. And that my thighs was the thing not of me, the God-part of my running machine. The rest of me was human - not only fallible, but actually prone to letting me down. In these barren times that metaphor still holds credence.

I watch the film of the young children tempted to eat a marshmallow in that famous experiment (eat one now, or leave it to eat two in fifteen minutes.) Those who were able to leave it for five minutes had a success far beyond the remits of a nice sweetie. When tracked for decades afterwards, those children able to leave the marshmallow were more successful by many of Western society's standards: they scored higher exam results; they held better jobs; and they had a lower divorce rate (and, by implication, happier marriages?)

I wonder how often in my short life so far that I have been one of those that would eat the Marshmallow.

There is one detail in this experiment, though. Those children who were successful were those who had strategies for avoiding the temptation. They tapped their feet. They walked around the room. Those who didn't suffered a tortuous time; some even rubbed the marshmallow around their face, or licked it, or rested it in their mouths.

Running is nothing if not self-discipline. And, as a teacher, I should be able to predict with startling severity those children who will achieve in life thanks to their self-discipline, and those who will struggle. For me, running is, in itself, something of an empty errand. It is, like the time I was recently applauded for my sponsorshipless marathon, something that can be quite selfish. It is empty, and ready to be filled with the meaning that we choose to give to it.

And so, it remains to be seen what happens to my fitness next week. Very little could happen. Like with last week, I might choose to drive past my house and onto the gym. But the days of sprinting are over... I hope! That is, the days of putting my all into a small timeframe of effort - at the expense of all else - are gone. They are childish. Instead the days of pushing my effort over a longer period of time, with all the rhythms of life, are here.