As those of you following my progress on the Shangri-La Diet
are aware, I began a running program on May 2nd, a week before I
started on the diet. My interest in the diet was not weight loss -- I'm
well within the 'ideal' weight for my size and frame -- but to see if I
could reduce my junk food cravings. As I've shifted to a 90% vegetarian
diet, I haven't 'missed' eating meat at all, but the evening cravings
(I'm a 'night person', metabolically) for salt, sugar and fat have
always been irresistible and unhealthy. Many people on the diet
reported a reduction in their food cravings, and I was interested in
the whole 'self-experimentation'
aspect of the diet, so I decided to give it a try. I've lost ten pounds
and an inch and a half off the waist, and look and feel much better,
but the cravings are, so far, as strong as ever.
My reasons for taking up running were entirely different. I have been increasingly impatient and stressed about my inability to find a 'second career' at the intersection
between my Gift, my Passion and my Purpose. On top of that, I've
received some distressing personal and financial news several times in
the last few months. So I was feeling down and pressured, and, as a
failed meditator, I'd found running therapeutic for dealing with stress
in past. I was so out of shape when I started that I could only manage
3km, but now I'm up to 10km three times a week.
To do this,
since I hate distractions, hills and traffic when I'm running, I set up
a 100m oval 'track' in my back yard, a completely private area. You can
just make out the outline of it on the edge of the forest in the photo
above. I've now set up a small tent beside it, where I go to think,
recuperate, and get inspiration (it's just on the fringe of my wi-fi
reception area). Several of our neighbours think I'm crazy to run 100
laps of the same track, but to me it's perfect -- beautiful, precise,
and literally right on my doorstep. I can even run nude if I'm so
inclined.
I'm not a running addict by any means -- I schedule it
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the same way I schedule other jobs
that must get done, like mowing the lawn. I look forward to it, but it
would not bother me if I missed a day. The 10km takes me just under an
hour (I'm built for sprints, and have never been very fast as a
distance runner). I don't like the actual running -- as I get closer to
the point of exhaustion, it is tedious to the point of discomfort --
but I love the feeling afterwards. It's all about getting through it.
I count laps on my fingers and scribble down my times after each 1km. I
am barely conscious of the beauty around me, even the curious looks
from the birds and wildlife that abound in the area. In hot weather
like we've had most of this month (24C to 34C, with humidex 6C higher
than that), I try to time my runs for clouds, wind and light rain, and
right after my cool-down I dive into the swimming pool -- better than
an orgasm. But while I'm running it is not fun, and there is no 'high'.
If, as some athletes confess, running is very much like masturbation,
then I guess I need to learn to be better at the build-up technique!
How do I describe the feeling after
I've finished running? I walk differently, a natural gait with a slight
bounce to it. The birds and animals react differently to me -- they
come closer, they interact with me as if I were another wild animal,
they seem less afraid of me. On one occasion a wild turkey actually ran a whole lap about ten paces ahead of me -- man, those ungainly creatures can move. As unaware of my surroundings as I am while I'm running, I'm much more aware of them afterwards. I see nuances of colour more intensely, I hear more acutely. I am somehow more connected to the Earth. I can smell the weather changing. I can taste flavours in the water I drink that normally I never notice. My whole body vibrates, quivers, glows.
To
some extent the exhilaration is due to accomplishment -- the steady
improvement to how I look and feel that I know is directly attributable
to this effort. But it's more than that. There is something primeval,
instinctive about running. In his book Why We Run,
Bernd Heinrich, the brilliant observer of animal behaviour, explains
that we evolved the ability and passion to run because it made us more
successful, and now it is part of who we are.
The exhilaration that comes from running is a celebration of our animal
being, of running as something inherently human, necessary, right.
Marathon runners tell me that I won't discover the true zen of running, that state of euphoria while
running, until I get far enough along in my training that it becomes
'sort-of' effortless, second nature. They may be right. I used to run
10 miles a day in my twenties, and it was never effortless, even 'sort-of'. We will see.
The
scientists say that the endorphins your body produces from
long-distance running are comparable to those that give you the buzz
from marijuana, or from chocolate, or from meditation. As someone who
just hasn't the patience, concentration and/or self-discipline for
meditation (I'm still not sure which -- damn I've tried),
whose pleasure from chocolate only lasts as long as the flavour on my
tongue, and who falls asleep before he gets high when he tokes, I can
only take their word for that.
I'll be content with being more connected, aware, relaxed, and closer to the Earth. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
