What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - What does the run mean for me

  What does the run mean for me? I think that for all history of mankind has not been thought up anything better and easier for health and composure than this. Only you and nature. Only you and the world. Only you and the Universe.
  People run for many reasons: to relieve stress, to stay healthy, to burn calories, and to have fun, just to name a few.
  It is not necessary any special adaptations to start to run. Only a minimum of inexpensive clothes and simple shoes. If certainly the run for you it is just the run but not a way to show yourself. Sometimes I look at hockey players hockey accessories and I become sadly from those heavy bags which they carry from childhood.
  When you decide to go for it, when you decide to make your move, when you pick up and run with it there�s less time to think, less time to worry, less things to take into account, and therefore less opportunities to miss.
  Running is for the philosophers. During a running you attended by very interesting thoughts on the eternal. I discovered how easy it was to escape from the body into a total encounter with my thoughts, thoughts I had never or rarely been conscious of before. Being a runner comes naturally to me. I am by nature a loner. And I prefer to run alone. "Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus" (Never less alone than when alone). It has always been so for people whose work is done in their minds, for those who fish for ideas in their stream of consciousness. One must be alone to do this. New thought does not come from logic and reason. It comes from inspiration...
  I can adjust the load as I want and how I feel. It depends on many reasons - from my mood, from the weather, from a physical condition etc. Running is a simple and universal mean to be healthy and happy. All muscles are working during running. The massage of all organs of the body including internal ones is carried out. Sometimes you feel that a little bit more and you will start to fly.
  I ran many times during the different periods of my life, but it was not regular.
  I call it to clean the vessels or valves. And indeed each time after run I feel renewed. My blood pressure became as at boy (110/70). And this condition kept for few days. As though all my organism continues to work in the rhythm of running. This is a wonderful feeling. Now I was convinced of it one more time and I think It is firever.
  I ran 10 .. 15 kilometres and I feel great. This is like a drug. Running attracts to itself. And waking up in the morning, you already feel that you can not live without ranning. And you run again and again.
  I wait for my second wind. It takes 6 to 10 minutes and one degree in body temperature to shunt the blood to the working muscles. When that happens I experience a light warm sweat and know what the "second wind" means. I must run quite slowly until this occurs. Then I can dial yourself to "comfortable," put yourself on automatic pilot, and enjoy...
  Sometimes I try to combine the run with visiting of new places. There is always a small camera in my pocket. And from time to time I take some pictures that attract my artistic attention.
  I learned to regulate my loading. Now I can change transmissions like on the car. I can run "by all of my body", or only "by bottom part of", or only "by overhead part of my body". All these speeds and switchings occur in my head. And as it seems to me I am recharged from space.
  Practically I can run very long distance without stopping, adjusting the load by this way. While it will not become boring for me. I feel myself like Forrest Gump. This remarkable film by Robert Zemeckis very influenced on my life, and I constantly remember his hero, brilliantly played by Tom Hanks.

"That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County. And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I'd just run across the great state of Alabama. And that's what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going."

And like Forrest Gump I thought maybe I'd run to Old Port. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run to top of the Mont-Royal mountain. Et cetera. And everything comes true.
  If life is the mode of existence of albuminous bodies, the run is the mode of existence of healthy bodies (and smart, philosophical, artistic bodies too). I tnonk so.
  Sometimes I have a desire to run even during a simple walk. Easy walking already seems boring for me. And I simply pass to run for some time. In any clothes and shoes. When I get satisfaction I turn to walk again.
  I try don't use my car as more often as possible. Unfortunately I can't refuse it absolutely.

  I always wanted to write about run and its meaning. But Murakami passed me. Once in the subway car I have noticed that the guy in front of me read this book with an interesting for me title "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running". A few days later I already was reading it. As Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite authors (I have devoured every book he has written), it was a very welcome gift. Given that I am in the middle of several other books at the moment, I haven't read it yet, but I am very much looking forward to it. I had no idea that he was a runner until this book came out - yet another reason for liking him! I enjoyed it. Not earth shattering, nor really deep and meaningful, but a nice runners thread, like a conversation on a long run - sort of running snacks for the brain.
  "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" is full of clear, straightforward sentences that describe Murakami's life as a runner and explore how running shaped his character and his fiction. It is an open, welcoming book, deeper than it first seems and devoid of the playful trickery that streaks through many of his novels and stories. I particularly liked hearing about how he balanced such an introspective career (writing) with the physical pursuit of running and the discipline of each. It was nice to read a book about another runner's relationship with running- how they came to it, why they enjoy it, what they think about while running. I found it very comforting, like a hot chocolate in winter.
  And noticed with interest that his thoughts are mine also. Of course, not in all senses. But our main ideas coincide. Murakami said in interview: "I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it's not imagination. It's just a way of watching. Sometimes it's not easy. You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o'clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that's enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue. You cannot do that while you are asleep. When the dream stops, it stops forever. You cannot continue to dream that same dream. But if you are a writer, you can do that. That is a great thing, to keep on dreaming while you are awake."
  "For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor," Murakami writes. "Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself."
  Murakami certainly right that essence of racing and essence of writing are similar in a great deal. Writing is the same marathon, run on a long distance. And it is just necessary to start this process (to find boldness, overcome laziness et cetera) to dissolve then in it, let its devour you completely and to feel here a feeling similar to happiness.
  Murakami owned a jazz club in Tokyo until he decided to become a writer and a runner. He got the expected benefits (lost weight, quit smoking) from taking up the sport and found an activity that challenged and stimulated him. He doesn't proselytize for running and doesn't overstate its effects on himself, beyond this: "Most of what I know about writing I've learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate -- and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? ... I know that if I hadn't become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have definitely been different."
  During the run everytning inside of you automatically settles into shape, including the thought. More truly, these thoughts start to appear, and you should only have time to write it down. There is such feeling that someone is entering into dialogue with you and sending you these thoughts. This is very similar to the truth. You start to feel it by sixth sense. And you start to do something similar to creativity.
  Through running I have learned what I can be and do. My body is now sensitive to the slightest change. It is particularly aware of any decline or decay. I can feel this lessening of the "me" that I have come to think of myself. Running has made this new me. Taken the raw material and honed it and delivered it back ready to do the work of a human being.
  Someone said that running is just such a monastery-a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal.
  They say that regardless of your faith you communicate with God (or God communicates with you) when you're engaged in creativity, and when you're in love. I would like to think so. In general I think that there are many things in this world we are unable to learn. And only sometimes, in rare minutes of soul fly we have had to feel something by edge of our subconscious.
  This is so inexpressible feeling after the races, when every cell of your body works in itself and in unison with the Universe. And this condition proceeds by inertia still some time. Both during the run and after it you feel participating to something higher.
  However, it should be evident that the effects of training are temporary. I cannot put fitness in the bank. And I have to run just to stay in place. So, I prefer to run almost each day to preserve the self I attained before.
  The spring and especially the summer is particular time for the runner. The world becomes wider these seasons, all things become more tangible. Each wand gets its smell. The river is alive. People become closer and kinder. And you read fleeting understanding in faces of hurrying towards you runners and bicyclists.
  This crazy aroma of waking plants deprives you of recent doubts about to be or not to be. First, sticky aroma of blossoming buds of trees. Then is a bird cherry tree - the premessenger of the short May colds - with its tart flavor, beginning in your nostrils and coming to an end somewhere in the far childhood. And the mad lilac, finally taking you from a mind and sending you once again in to those wonderful times of the first school dates and kisses. And also there is apple-cherry petal blizzard with its own unique charm.
  And finally comes long-awaited summer when aroma of the simple wild flowers is capable to outshine all these Shanel and Dior.
  I envy Murakami with his eternal Hawaiian summer. It is very beautiful nature here in Quebec. But unfortunately the short summer is not capable to satisfy all my requirements. And even though I had lived all his life in central Russia where the climate is almost the same with here, I am tired of this snow and winter. I love the summer the farther the better. Maybe this is related to age?
  Running energizes me and helps me clear my head. The days when I don't run I feel like something is definitely missing. And since my entire persona is influenced by my running program, I must be constantly in training. However there are some days when I am not running (when I am ill, when I have a bad mood, when I am busy, when is terrible weather outside or when I am lazy). Yes, sometimes I am an ordinary man. However in such days I do my home exercises. I prefer something like yoga. I invent these exercises myself. And I do it every day at home before to go to run. However it is another story ......