I used to think that I loved running because it made me free.
But lately, the runs have been harder. Not any less satisfying, just harder to get into. Harder to enjoy. It’s not that my runs have changed, but the purpose.
Lately, I’ve been running to get away from people. I’m not quite sure how this happened.
I do the long run in the middle of the week, to avoid people. Sometimes, there are other trail users. Horses always get the right of way, mountainbikers have to yield to me. But I automatically get out of the way for everyone. Even here, I worry about taking up space.
During an exchange in a mountainbiking board, some proudly stated that while they notice bicycle models, they never notice the color of the riders. Bullshit. Because you notice when the great majority of people you meet on the trail do not look like you.
I try to run through the tightness in my chest. It’s all seasons and flows. Months ago, this trail was a lush green, with yellow wildflowers. Now, it’s dry and brown. A good reminder that Los Angeles is a desert after all.
If I let it, somewhere around this dead tree, my anger lifts. Sports psychologists call it flow time. I whisper a request to any tree-dwelling spirits, Makikiraan lang po.
I notice once again the life on this trail. The red ants with painful stings.
The snakes. (sorry, I was too nervous to take a picture)
The caw-cawing black birds who inspire with their ability to ride the wind.
I feel anger and sadness that their lives are such a struggle.
The coyotes spend daylight in the brown grass. Sometimes, you can hear them huff as you run past their hiding spaces. When the sun sets, they emerge onto the trail, greeting one another in joyful song. Defiantly alive.
Some hikers regret that our trail has few deer and migrating ducks. But I root for the snakes and coyotes. Perhaps it’s my tendency to identify with the “wrong” characters in literature and movies. Like Grendel’s mother. Roy Batty. Caliban.
Especially Caliban.
And rooting for Caliban reminds me that I’m not as disconnected as I thought. That there are people to whom I feel strongly accountable. And there are beautiful allies who run this trail with me.
It’s these thoughts that get me up that last hill.
I am a transplant to this city and this country. I’ve always felt somewhat apart from it. But more and more, I feel like I’m a part of it too.
The best runs end with this defiant joy.
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Inspired by bfp’s amazing (re)thinking walking series. Mga kabayan, please check it out. What do your journeys look like in Manila, Bacolod, Laguna? In Hongkong, London, Jeddah?
Gorgeous and moving, Tanglad. Just beautiful.
It’s amazing how people can do the exact same thing from such radically different positions. I also run regularly, and have for quite some time.
But for me, running has always been about power! By power, I mean a romanticized conception of the physicist’s definition of power: work over time, and the ability of the human body to produce it. As much as I value human cognitive ability, I often feel that those who exalt the mental at the expense of the physical commit the same sort of objectification as those they oppose, merely replacing disembodied brains with disembodied breasts or biceps in what caricature of humanity that they reduce people to. A person must be taken in their entirety! In their fast-twitch muscles as well as their neurons, for the two are intimately connected. Our physical nature is both a cause and consequence of our mental one, and is it not ultimately by our bodies that the mind is able to impose its will on nature at all?
To train one’s body in the quest for physical perfection is absolutely required if one is to fully embrace one’s human nature, and what uniquely human way to do that by running? There is nothing like the human foot anywhere else in the animal kingdom, being uniquely suited for bipedal endurance running. And endure we can! The sustained power output of a human is unmatched in the animal kingdom. Only a human hunter can kill their prey by sheer persistence. That very video crystallized in my mind what running means to me, for when I first saw it I thought, “This is the ultimate truth of the human body!”
I don’t mean that in any objective sense, but it has caused the act of running to one’s limit to have a somewhat spiritual aspect for me. To run is not merely the honing and celebration of a body’s physical prowess, but a celebration of the human body in particular, and a recognition of the interplay between evolutionary forces that ultimately led to our latter supremacy in the field of artifice. The human hand, and the mind behind, took on an entirely new dimension when it became exclusively a manipulator instead of a means of locomotion, which required bipedalism. When I run long and hard, I pay tribute to our common past from which sprang the belligerency of technology and civilization itself!
It is these thoughts which get me over that last hill, and I cannot help but appreciate that the burning in my chest must have some shade of similarity to that which burned in the hearts of our ancestors, who ran not for tribute or spiritualism but for life itself, and even though I always stop running eventually, I remember that the run is never really over; there is always another hill. It is never the run that ends, but our ability or desire to run, and though the trails facing humans today are not as often conquered by cardiovascular endurance, the same principle applies to them all. As with the simple act of running, the limits of the possible are mostly within us, and though we may never completely overcome some of them, we must nonetheless strive against contentment of all kinds to chase after the unattainable ideal, for that is the only way to continuously improve.
I suppose it is no coincidence that I tend to be most productive after exercising.
@Lisa – Salamat!
@AR – I agree about the power, and totally agree about the valorization of the mental over the physical. I see a lot of denigration of “it’s only physical activity” in grad school. I’ve been thinking about your comment, and thinking about that Cartesian duality, why we separate mental from physical, as if one can exist without the other. I think about the world differently not only after running, but during the run. The engagement of the body adds something invaluable, and I can’t quite articulate yet what that is.
Hi Tanglad–I just remembered last night that you had posted this and that I wanted to ask you to cross post it or if I could link it over at my blog? I read this when it first came out–sorry to take so long to get back to it!!!!
ANd I wanted to say–this was SO amazing to read–and this part from AR:
I cannot help but appreciate that the burning in my chest must have some shade of similarity to that which burned in the hearts of our ancestors, who ran not for tribute or spiritualism but for life itself,
yes. I can not run that well, as it really hurts my back–but I’ve been doing these incredibly long hikes–and while I was in colorado, I was doing these hikes up mountains–and I was being pushed in THAT way–the way that I remembered what it felt like to be pushed hard because our walking was taking us to food or to a safe place to camp for the night, or water…in a weird way, I really understood migration and being migratory people–and what has been lost because walking and movement has become apolitical in a sense–something done for individuals–for “health”–rather than something that marks a coming of age, or a tribal need or–*life*….
Hi bfp.
Of course you could cross-post, thanks for asking. It was written because of your series, which made me think about movement and mobility. You and AR’s comments have made me think about indigenous populations back home, for whom run-walking for hours is an intrinsic part of life. Is life, in fact. And how militarization and corporate mining and logging is disrupting this very human activity.
I loved reading your Colorado posts. Made me happy to read about you climbing a mountain.
ok, it’s posted! http://flipfloppingjoy.com/2009/07/10/1532/
re: the running for hours–the tribe that I came from was like that too! I don’t know too much about it, because of borders, I became “mexican” rather than indigenous–but it seems like this running for hours thing–like it is something that indigenous peoples throughout the world did. I remember reading some where that the people who did that type of running–they weren’t considered “good” runners until they were older–like in their 40’s and 50’s–and just that alone makes me think about how horribly things have shifted–how age is not a sign of respect or more “expertise”–but a sign of “it’s ok to dispose of.”
[...] 31, 2009 by tanglad I’ve been thinking of a comment bfp left here a few weeks ago …because of borders, I became “mexican” rather than [...]
hey ms tanglad, i’m becomng addicted to your blog!
This entry was quite relaxing especally for a student like me who has just stolen some internet time. It was a week full of stress and the 3rd world women problems (as an academic subject matter and being one) had me boxed in my room.
Thanks for bringing me along. Pics were great too.
Hey, glad you came along with me, reina.