On Running: from Physical to Metaphysical
Over the past several months of running every day, I’ve come to notice many things about life and my surroundings. It’s as if a whole New World has opened to me. I wonder if it was the act of being alone with just my body and thoughts for an extended period. Maybe it was the extra blood flow through my vessels and into my brain breathing renewed life into my consciousness. Either way, it was revealing.
Key to all this, I believe, was running without the noise of headphones and long enough to get lost in oneself. The longer you go, the deeper you can get as there are many levels to this sort of thinking. At some point, you tend to arrive at some deep-seated shit. Things that have unknowingly affected your life, and not always for the best. You are forced to face them, for there’s nowhere you can hide when you’re miles away from home, from comfort, from the distractions of the industrialized world. It’s just you, your mind, your body, and your demons, in the cold, hard truth of the life you’ve built within you and around you. Now is your time of reckoning, will you stand up to it, or crumble?
By continuously putting on my running shoes, and getting back out on the road, day after day, I’m forced to continue confronting myself. This act itself has been momentous, as I’ve never successfully committed to sticking to a daily habit like this in my entire life, although I’ve tried many times. I finally put my mind and body on notice and set out to finally figure this life of mine out. And what did I see?
A Physical Awakening
The unceasing pounding on the pavement revealed many weaknesses in my body. To continue running, I’ve had to learn how to address them. I couldn’t just hide from them by taking a couple of days off anymore. I took stock of all the bodily pain I was experiencing and would think deeply about where it originated while running, in the moment of experiencing it, determining if it was just my mind being weak, or if it was an actual deficiency. Then I would come up with a plan to address it. Whether just realizing I needed to suck it up, or if it required actual treatment. And I’m not talking about medical treatment. I’m talking about personal, self-directed treatment. Taking deliberate action and time to strengthen the problem area. Research the most effective ways to do so. See if there were any movements or stretches I could incorporate into my daily routine to help assuage it.
Unfortunately, there were some issues that I realized I might be stuck with for the rest of my life. Like the pain from the osteochondral lesion of my talus in my left ankle. This injury resulted from a terrible impact during a jump in the 82nd Airborne Division. I’ll never forget the surgeon telling me that I might never be able to run pain-free again if I ever get back to running at all. He recommended incredibly invasive surgery to remove the pulverized portion of bone and implant donor bone; that recovery would take at least a year, and at best, it would be an 80% solution. Incredibly, he and the Army were fully on board with me having the surgery. It seemed aggressive to me at the time, but I didn’t know any better. I was about to go through that until I didn’t. Looking back and knowing what I know now about the body’s ability to recover and overcome, and the eagerness of the medical industry to perform elective surgeries, I am fortunate to still have my original, although damaged bones in my ankle.
But how did I overcome it? Many ways. For one, I change my running style to reduce the impact on my ankle and all the bones that follow. I went from being primarily a heel-foot striker, to a forefoot striker. This moved most of the impact from my bones onto my muscles and connective tissue. It took a while for my tendons and ligaments, especially all the muscles and connective tissue associated with my calf region to get used to it. I spent many months running one or 2 miles on the balls of my feet, with many days off in between to recover, to finally get accustomed to it. But once I did, the relief on my left ankle, in fact, on my whole body, especially my back, was noticeable. That stage of just me trying to recover from the shambles of my body I was left with after leaving the army took almost a year to get through. But it was a necessary stage to progress through to even get close to running daily.
But once I started running every day, I realized that the forefoot striking wasn’t enough to sustain me. I also needed to strengthen the entire support system around that ankle. Indeed, I needed to do so for my entire body, as weaknesses in my lower body strength were flaring up everywhere. So, I started committing to lifting and recovery every day too. Thus, was born my next two daily habits of physical health: lift every day and recover every day. And as I’m writing this, I see so clearly now. If I am to keep this damaged body of mine, physically active and moving for the rest of my life, it’s going to take all three acts of running, lifting, and recovering, working synergistically, every day, to prevent the pain and weakness from ever overtaking me again.
A Metaphysical Awakening
But what about my mind? Once I addressed all my bodily ailments, for they would impede my ability to think deeply, I found my mind to be the true battleground during each run. Some days I arrive home victorious, unscathed, triumphant, but some days I arrive home, bloody, beat down, and crushed by the calamity of my consciousness. Most of the time, it’s somewhere in between, but regardless, I always return home walking through the garage door, more awake than when I left.
It always happens similarly. I’ve decided on my route and miles for the day and finally settled into my stride. I’m starting to notice the way my body interacts with the environment. Feeling the temperature, the wind, the sun, the humidity, the precipitation, the gloominess, and the pressure of the atmosphere, pressing down on me. Even though our atmosphere is not highly viscous like water, I’m still running through a medium of gases, connecting all things, producing waves, and feeling the repercussions of it all.
Then, almost miraculously, a thought pops into my head, sometimes similar in topic, but always different in structure. It could be a decision I made in my past, that led to a consequence, as they all do, that I thought insignificant at the time, but now, realizing it was not so. It’s a part of who I am, for better, or for worse, and now I must settle the nature of it. My mind brought it up for a reason, so I always attempt to see it through.
I say attempt because sometimes that thought can open a portal into my mind, reaching deeper and deeper thoughts. If it’s something profound, I send a text to myself on my watch while running to capture and address following the conclusion of my run. Sometimes it’s just so evil, so vile. I want nothing to do with it and I throw it into the dirt to be picked up at a later run after it’s had some time to compose itself.
These portals into the depths of my consciousness are what I’ve come to value these runs for more than anything else, more than physical and mental health aspects. I’m able to tap into a different world. The world that is my subconscious. Here I can directly interact with my being and all the experiences, memories, beliefs, insults, and decisions, that make it up. It’s as if I’m sitting at the same table with Sigmund Freud’s ego, id, and superego of my being and wrestling through who gets to control what, and what gets to shine through.
What I get out of this, is a deep examination of my life and the life ahead if the course remains the same. Or the potential of what could be if I adjust. It may all seem like fantasy and in many ways it is. But isn’t our world just a fantastical projection of the mind? Through this fantastic voyage along the streets of Foxborough, Massachusetts, I see my life in its entirety, played out daily, for an hour at a time. Then I take what I saw upon my return to reality, whether bloody and bruised, or soaring, and begin making the necessary changes to my life, as I strive to get myself closer to my ideal self.
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A Note on Running Routes
Running routes. Old and new. Each has its place in the journey of discovering you. Old routes have less to be seen outward over time allowing you to see more inward. New routes expand your aperture, so you see less inside you. Both have their place. Old routes provide you with depth. New routes, expansion. You need both for without the expanded, broadened mind, you will have no space to fill with what you on uncovered in the depths. But don’t get lost on the same route as you may not escape the downward spiral. Open yourself to the world, to change, to improvement, as seen along new routes. You may find things you never knew existed. Let the sunlight shine through your consciousness, deep into your subconscious, for it also needs to see what’s around.
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