Running life and loss – If ever there was a reason for mourning then it is now with the latest information received via my orthopaedic surgeon that I will never run again.
To ordinary people who jog occasionally and even those that run frequently this would be bad news and in some cases a period of sadness may very well follow. I however am an exception to that rule, I say this not from the position of being a privileged life long athlete nor with any arrogance of superiority over any of my running colleagues.
Running life and loss
What running represents to me is the very meaning of life, if asked to describe myself it would be the very 1st descriptor I would use, “I am a runner”.
Running is a sixth, no 1st sense to me and it is the loss of this sense that I now confront. As a child running provided me with an escape from the constant buggery on my young body. It provided me with a safe haven away from the woman who birthed and stalked me. Running gave me a place to hide from my teenage peers, to bury my dark secrets. Running for the 1st time gave me something to be proud of, my 1st real achievement in a tormented and twisted life. As a semi sponsored athlete I ran with pride for my club and province, I took as much value and experience from my occasional wins but even more in the humility of my losses. These were vital life lessons being taught in the simplest of ways. Even between the drugs and the booze I found a pure integrity on the mountains, the track and the road. I was not one dimensional and gained as much joy slogging up Kasteelspoort as I did doing tough track pyramids on Green Point Stadium on Wednesdays.
The one thing I can say without any hesitation and complete and honest reflexivity is that I never took my gift for granted. I almost without exception showed gratitude on every run that I have run no matter how short or far, fast or slow, jog or wind sprint, training or racing they were all acknowledged. Having completely removed myself from the debauchery that Catholicism represented at a very you age, this was my faith. My god resided on the run, I would sometimes silently show acknowledgement, often just murmur thank you, occasionally shout at the top of my voice,” I FUCKING LOVE YOU, THANK YOU”. I have shed many a tear over my sweaty face as I’ve been consumed with the beauty of my surroundings and the privilege that I was granted.
Those were the private runs, I have had the additional pleasure of forming the tightest of bonds on the run. Secrets shared, problems solved, jokes laughed at and those special conversations that can only ever happen on the run. Coaching and being coached are a way of sharing knowledge and passing on the experience of our beautiful sport as we run vicariously through our coach or charge. The joy of seeing your person cross the line to meet their goal is as exhilarating as achieving that goal for oneself. The privilege of running in or leading a bus highlights the theory that a problem shared is a problem halved. Seeking protection from a headwind or matching the pace of the person in front of you allowing one’s mind the relief to escape the agony of many a difficult journey can never be underestimated. I have been hugged and hugged complete strangers as we crossed our finish line of a race knowing that, that help was invaluable.
Possibly the greatest benefit from running that I have received has been a life of incredible health and spirit of general ebullience. Those days when the last thing I want to do is run in the rain or the cold and I drag my body out the door to return home warm and exhilarated will never be forgotten. These runs occasionally return me to my inner child, the one that was ruined in my youth that I get the opportunity to rescue and be the overjoyed little boy that I once should have been. The sense of freedom from the prison of my mind has so often been released to roam free and wander in a cloud of negligence and not neglect.
Running is my chemist, my doctor, my shrink the place I go to when I require healing. I have barely been sick a day in my life and when I have running has healed me always. Ironically it is the blade of the surgeon’s scalpel that has caused the demise of that part of my life, stripping away my closest friend. The darkest of depressing clouds that I once momentarily experienced in my life were lifted by running in nature providing a ray of hope so that I could live in the fulfillment and joy that has pervaded most of my existence. You cannot be depressed and run. The highs and lows of life are emulated through our beautiful sport but both are embraced in the same way. Pain is a necessary manifestation of life but replicated so beautifully when in motion. That pain acts as my penance, humiliating me back into reality forcing a reflection on what I’ve done wrong and how to make it right. That pain is a check to my arrogance. In pain there is a purity of joy where the runner gets to confront nothing but it, wholeheartedly in the present. Nothing else matters but the joy of the excruciating.
To say that I have been stripped of my identity is not an exaggeration flagellated with self pity, it is my reality. During driving trips I always automatically scope the surrounding landscape planning or imagining what it would be like to run on that piece of road, or go over that mountain. These imaginings have very often turned into several glorious realities. Running and being a runner is my default. My body shape, diet, wardrobe, mindset and conversations are all formed around being a runner. I did not make this and it did not make me, running and self are in my circumstance not binary nor even connected, we are part of the same whole. As I mourn the loss of my passion I should explain that this is a loss of me. This is my inherent birth right that I was gifted to show me a way through the difficulties of my young existence and keep me healthy through my addictions. This was not a tool that I developed as an aid but rather a guide that I could call on when needed. More often than not that guide would call on me to put on my shoes and get out the door, unbeknown to me that was very necessary at the time and I would only receive the true message often much later.
Ironically on receiving such devastating news I would without thought or hesitation automatically just go for a run. I don’t know what life looks like without having access to that part of me, that part of me that so much determines who I am. With my last race run and staring the final defeat in the face with no next chance I don’t know how I am going to manage my life from here on in. Cruelly the pain I now feel, the pain that I have fallen in love with, I now no longer have any control over. This is the worst pain of my life and it hurts like nothing I ever experienced before. Part of me has just died.
article by Neil Jackson
