It’s interesting. The more I run, the more I prefer silence. Or at least, the human noise that goes along with it – the rhythm of my foot strikes, breath moving through my body, my beating heart. I used to be scared of running without music blaring in my ears. I didn’t want to hear my breath; I feared that being confronted with its laborious nature would make me quit earlier. Music served as a distraction from the effort.
A few weeks ago, I came across this notion of “mindful running” while leafing through the sports section of a local bookshop in town. I was on one of my Thursday afternoon rambles, where I had the luxury of solitude and time to linger. Upon encountering the phrase, I immediately plopped myself down in a corner and decided to follow my curiosity. The term “mindful running” intrigued me because it sounded so soft, effortless, and entirely unlike the Western world’s image of the sweaty athlete sprinting to EDM on a treadmill at the gym. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy such sessions. But since I’m deep into my training block at the moment, I’m often running for longer than eighty minutes and mostly on mountain trails or in serene suburban areas. Consequently, I had begun craving silence but was not yet confident enough to leave the AirPods at home. So, I sat down in a cross-legged position and started reading while sipping contentedly on my almond cappuccino.
“Mindful running” is rooted in the native American tradition of meditation runs. Similar to seated meditation, mindful running also centres on the breath. You lengthen the inhale and calm the exhale, opening the back of the throat and noticing the change in temperature as it switches direction. You become attentive to the environment, making an effort to hear the birds and see the trees or houses that you are passing. You are grateful for your body and your feet carrying you where you want to go. The run can even be dedicated to a loved one by spending your strides purposefully wishing them happiness and well-being. It’s more about feeling connected to the earth and your body than an effort to grind out a few miles so you can check it off a to-do list.
Since I have employed this new “unplugged” training method, I have become fascinated by the stillness and simplicity of movement. The first time I ran without music, it felt like clearing the dust out of my mind. I was creating mental space. I went to an art gallery earlier in the week and came across this painting of a head filled with water and a few goldfish. That’s kind of how it felt, like my head was filled with cool water and there were just some thoughts gliding through. Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking of how I was struggling, wondering if I had eaten enough carbs the day before or fantasising about the coffee I’ll have when I get home. For the first time, I understood what seasoned runners mean when they say relax into the run. Imagine that – powering your body forward, pumping blood through your arteries at twice its average pace, and being able to relax while doing it. It felt like a superpower. I never would have thought that one could run longer and easier. But once I got the hang of it, I realised that this is what I was made for all along, on a spiritual level, yes, but more importantly, on an evolutionary level. Our bodies are biomechanically engineered to run long and strong. In her beautiful memoir, Run, Erica Terblanche writes that running in silence offers “a pervasive feeling that there is enough time and reason to feel at peace.”
When was the last time you felt like that? For the longest time, I was addicted to toxic productivity. I believed I was only worthy of my place in the world if I was constantly producing, getting better or taking on more responsibilities than I could handle. This feeling links to what the critical theorist, Herbert Marcuse, calls the “performance principle.” Everywhere we look, success and happiness are interrelated, and the way to get there is through perpetual progress. This mindset kept me on the brink of burnout not only in my academic and work life but also in my running. At one point last year, even though I was running more than ever, I felt like a failure because my speed plateaued. I didn’t know the difference between recovery runs, training runs, long runs, and tempo runs. On every run, I felt the pressure to get a PR of some sort. It turned the activity I started doing to find peace, into another competition where I was losing to my own expectations.
Training for long-distance goals is a beautiful way of learning how to live one’s life. During this journey, I learned how to balance my need for progress and my yearning for peace. Peace is not the opposite of “the grind;” it isn’t stagnation. Peace is when you are in motion, but you’re comfortable in your becoming. You are moving towards a better version of yourself, but you love all the people you are along the way. Peace is realising that the present is perfect, not because it is faultless, but because it is all you have. What you are doing with this moment is going to determine the past you will look back on and the future you will live in. Mindful running has taught me that one can find pockets of stillness even on the run. One can be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
This past Saturday, I competed in my first official road race. My only goal was to finish without feeling the need to keep up with anyone else. It was a 10K spanning the route that Nelson Mandela walked from the Drakenstein Correctional Facility to freedom on the day he was released. I finished in tears, not because I struggled, but because it was such a beautiful experience. I ran the whole way at a comfortable pace, all the while mindful of the history that unfolded there years before. It was called the Freedom Race, and even though my personal struggles cannot even come close to what Madiba experienced, I did feel a sense of liberation when I crossed the finish line. I felt free of crushing expectations, feelings of unworthiness and years of limiting self-narratives.
The opposite of peace isn’t progress; it’s unsettlement. I feel unsettled when I know I deserve better than what I am giving to myself – whether it be stagnation or pushing myself too hard. In contrast, I am happiest when I find soft ways of fulfilling my potential. Yes, growth is uncomfortable, but it can also be gentle. Perhaps it’s time to shift our vocabularies when thinking of what is possible. In life, as in running, you can achieve much more than you think if you just create space for rest. Instead of blasting music and distracting yourself from how you feel, listen to the human noise you are making. If you’re huffing and puffing, slow down. Inhale deeper. If your foot strikes are heavy and plopping, shorten your stride. You can go so much farther if you just relax into the run. Perhaps, if you master that, you too can feel there is “enough time and reason to feel at peace.” (As always, this is applicable to running, but it’s also about a lot more than just running). You are worthy of periods of rest, but you are also worthy of growth. Don’t ever feel that you have to choose between moving forward and taking time to linger.
Leave a Reply