Every evening (well, 6 out of 7 evenings,) I go for a little 2k jog!
Now, the fact that this might defy the Gospel of Training vs Rest isn’t as relevant here, as what I take from these twenty minutes of pavement-pounding… peace, let’s call it.
These runs have evolved into a non-negotiable, and for reasons that extend way, way beyond fitness.
It might sound dramatic to list sanity as an incentive, so instead, I’ll settle for de-compression.
A catchall for silence, solitude and scenery if ever there was one.
It’s for this reason, that I never run with headphones, preferring instead to take in the soundscape of the world outside home. A soundscape that is not quieter, per se (traffic is a given on this tarmacced route,) but it is different, diluted, and not demanding of my attention, like the noise of home.
Instead, it skirts overhead, creating an illusion of quiet that is invaluable for allowing the day’s thoughts and stresses to process and consolidate.
Along this familiar and well-pounded route, life unfolds. A microcosm of people, places and paraphernalia that all seem to mean something… to the deep-thinking runner!
There’s the pub that always has its doors open, through which the smell of beer and sticky carpets radiates with a bitter-sweet nostalgia, of my pub-going days gone by!
Next, there’s the teens-with-attitude who saunter past smoking something questionable, waxing smug about the TK max trainers brought for some-bargain-price earlier that day!
I try to pretend I haven’t been ear-wigging, as I pass the parked-up Corsa with its GHD-straight-hair driver…a vision of my former 16 year old self.
Before I have a chance to get lost down THAT rabbit hole, I’m faced with the challenge of how to politely overtake a fellow path-hogging, converse-wearing runner whose headphones are rendering ‘excuse me’ pointless!
Eventually, I decide swerving onto the muddy verge is infinitely less painful than waiting to be seen.
The rest of the run is a mixed bag of minutiae, true to life I should say.
The dead bee which I poked for signs of life, to no avail, shortly followed by…THE field!
The field in which you could be anywhere in the world, on account of its urban gloriousness!
This field is small, but it bears witness to a world of wildlife, sunrises, sunsets!
I said to my husband the other day, that if you close one eye (the right eye which aligns with the housing estate) you could be in Tuscany, or Provence, even!
It’s a delusion that I indulge in daily. A sideways glance. A strategic wink, and the the escapism that fuels this running fire, is stoked once again.
Come rain or shine, it’s THIS that overrides the call of the comfort zone. It’s the pull of the life-affirming, in all its pub-banter belllowing, birds-tweeting-in-the-distance glory!