For a few years now, running has been a bittersweet journey for me. No matter how much I want to be a runner and keep it regular, I keep getting off it. Then I go back in again. But then something happens and I fall off the wagon once more. It has been a growing spiral of accomplishments and disappointments for me.

But why do I run, in the first place? What’s so appealing for me?

I know the answer to that. It’s its primordiality. It’s the first exercise humans did, the most basic and natural you can do. Our feeble meat suit has no particularly good tool to protect us from predators, so running was probably necessary to keep us alive. Even after started hunting, the human being always relied on its trustful feet in order to get close to its (hopefully) next dinner really fast.

I guess that’s why I force myself to put my trainers on and go out the door. Weight loss or better physical form are not in my goals, although they are pleasant side effects. But there’s something else, something most runners might have found before or are yet to realise.

Haruki Murakami wrote it best:

I just run. I run in void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void.

We start drifting towards another reality we run. A lonely, deserted, intimate reality that belongs only to the runner. You’re still aware of this world’s sights & sounds, you still hop occasionally to avoid the puddles left by this morning’s rain. But part of you is somewhere else. Somewhere quiet.

Each person has its own way of spending their time in such place. Some people plan the following day or week, some people solve mental puzzles, some visit old memories like replays of their favourite movie. Myself, I with the loners. My plane of existence over there is barren of any external intervenient. The only presence besides me is the task at hands: running. Soon enough, you start getting a lingering floating sense. Like you were a spectator on your own body. You’re a vessel that moves forward automatically putting one foot ahead of the other, keeping its balance with this restless motion.

The only thing that brings you back is the pain. Those acute, stab-like signals that tell you “What the hell are you doing? This is preposterous! You should be at home, safe from elements and with plenty of food nearby.” But you’re familiar with that pain. You are old acquaintances, it’s a presence you now have as familiar and normal. It’s just there to make sure you’re not doing something actually dangerous, like running into a desert without any ounce of water.

But like during a meditation session, you see this pain, you acknowledge its presence, but you let it go through you, like water flowing through a river. You know it will eventually subside and you’ll find yourself back to your plane of solitude.