The path is nothing special, just one of my regular routes by the river but at this moment in time there is nowhere I would rather be and nothing else I would rather be doing. I feel alive, brimming with energy, I feel free.
How did I ever manage without running?
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| Enjoying the run at Swansea Half Marathon Last year |
It’s something that has taken over my life, dominating my thoughts and actions but as a kid I was never really interested. I never saw running as a sport in its own right. In my rather short sighted view it was a training method, body conditioning that allowed you to improve your ability and endurance when playing proper sports such as tennis, football and cricket. A proper sport involved not only physical ability and athleticism but hand eye coordination and skill. Running lacked the hand eye coordination so in my mind it was downgraded to a training tool.
Years later I needed the sport, It was my last resort in the ongoing fight against the M.E. I still didn’t see running as a fully fledged sport though. To me it was a process, a tool that I could use to try and help get myself out of the slump I was in and try to regain some sort of control. It was me vs the M.E and running was my chosen weapon.
There were so many reasons why it had to be running
To start with it was the easiest way to get fit. In the same beautifully simple way that to play football you just need a ball or even just a tin can, to run all I needed was a pair of trainers. I could do it anywhere and any time, fitting the sport around my life and my illness. There was no expensive kit to buy, no facilities I had to travel to or pay for. There was no team expecting me to play each and every week. No one to let down if I was too tired and couldn’t make it. It was just me and the shoes. I could go out on my own doing things in my time, letting only myself down if things went wrong. I was in control.
In fact the more I think about it the more running is the perfect sport for me and my M.E.
If I'm feeling bad the run can be shorter, or slower. On better days I can go further and faster, it all depends on how I feel at that moment in time and what my body can manage.
What I have come to realise is that I was really wrong in my early views about running. It is one of the most natural and pure sports that we have. If you so wish there are no rules and regulations, just you, your feet and a desire to do what ever you want. It’s the best game in the world, one that changes every time I go out, providing me with new feelings and experiences. Each run gives me new ways to find out more about myself and what I can do.
It’s not that I didn’t run, I spent most of my life doing it, but it was always to chase a ball of some sort. Running was just an element of the sports that I enjoyed so much. To run on your own just for the sake of running seemed a bit boring and pointless if there wasn’t a ball at the final destination.
I did go to a couple of races and run for the school, I remember one race, a cross country scramble up and down a local hillside where I finished fourth, just off the podium and so close to the lemonade that was masquerading as Champagne. Cross country wasn’t so bad, we had set up a club at school and I enjoyed the jaunt through the fields and around the country lanes but I think the chance to get covered in mud was probably my main motivation for doing it. Running and the few races I entered were just sideshows to my favourite sports, run on days when there was no football/rugby/cricket/tennis/basketball to be played. It was something different to fill the gap, to keep me active in-between playing real sports.
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| School sports day, a rare day of running without a ball involved. I am second on the left of the picture behind my childhood nemesis Gareth Hill |
I had no idea how bigger part running would play later on in my life.
Years later I needed the sport, It was my last resort in the ongoing fight against the M.E. I still didn’t see running as a fully fledged sport though. To me it was a process, a tool that I could use to try and help get myself out of the slump I was in and try to regain some sort of control. It was me vs the M.E and running was my chosen weapon.
There were so many reasons why it had to be running
To start with it was the easiest way to get fit. In the same beautifully simple way that to play football you just need a ball or even just a tin can, to run all I needed was a pair of trainers. I could do it anywhere and any time, fitting the sport around my life and my illness. There was no expensive kit to buy, no facilities I had to travel to or pay for. There was no team expecting me to play each and every week. No one to let down if I was too tired and couldn’t make it. It was just me and the shoes. I could go out on my own doing things in my time, letting only myself down if things went wrong. I was in control.
In fact the more I think about it the more running is the perfect sport for me and my M.E.
If I'm feeling bad the run can be shorter, or slower. On better days I can go further and faster, it all depends on how I feel at that moment in time and what my body can manage.
What I have come to realise is that I was really wrong in my early views about running. It is one of the most natural and pure sports that we have. If you so wish there are no rules and regulations, just you, your feet and a desire to do what ever you want. It’s the best game in the world, one that changes every time I go out, providing me with new feelings and experiences. Each run gives me new ways to find out more about myself and what I can do.
When I run, I can play with the ground beneath me, challenging the continually changing vistas that appear from over the horizon. I skip from surface to surface, running on tarmac, grass, sand, gravel, each of them offering different experiences and challenges. No run is ever the same. Sometimes I dance round puddles other days I drive straight through them, sometimes (although it’s rare in Wales) those puddles aren’t even there. It's one big constantly varying game with the whole world as my pitch and where there are no rules or referee. I can use whichever part of the pitch I please and do whatever I want. I am the controller of the world around me.
It took time to see running like this though to see it as this game, as this wonderfully free sport. To start with it really did feel like taking medicine. It was not a pleasant process, but I had to get through it to try and beat the M.E.
Six months in and I started to feel a bit of the magic of what running could offer. I was enjoying the sensations it gave me.
So now I run most days and you know what it feels pretty damn good. There's an energy it gives me, a high, an adrenaline rush that keeps me going, it gives me just enough to lift the fog of tiredness and escape it's clutches for a few hours at least. I guess you could say I'm trying to outrun the illness, in my mind the more I run the further it takes me away from the M.E and those days where I could barley even speak without it being an effort. Sometimes I look back at where I was, and the sofa that had become my world. I managed to escape and run free, leaving that isolated life behind. Now each time I run I feel like the luckiest man alive. Whilst I am out running I no longer have M.E, I am just me again.
It took time to see running like this though to see it as this game, as this wonderfully free sport. To start with it really did feel like taking medicine. It was not a pleasant process, but I had to get through it to try and beat the M.E.
Six months in and I started to feel a bit of the magic of what running could offer. I was enjoying the sensations it gave me.
So now I run most days and you know what it feels pretty damn good. There's an energy it gives me, a high, an adrenaline rush that keeps me going, it gives me just enough to lift the fog of tiredness and escape it's clutches for a few hours at least. I guess you could say I'm trying to outrun the illness, in my mind the more I run the further it takes me away from the M.E and those days where I could barley even speak without it being an effort. Sometimes I look back at where I was, and the sofa that had become my world. I managed to escape and run free, leaving that isolated life behind. Now each time I run I feel like the luckiest man alive. Whilst I am out running I no longer have M.E, I am just me again.
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| Todays playground of choice - Caerphilly Castle
Here is a link to my just giving page, raising money for Action for M.E.
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