How running soothes my soul... and then spits in my face
My love-hate relationship with pounding the pavements.
An audio version of this article is available here:
“Going for a run early in the morning, before everyone wakes up, is like seeing your city undressed, sleepy, without its game face on. You notice the small details and hear the soft noises. You watch for the changes as it slowly shakes off the dark. You feel like a guest and that feels like a privilege.”
I wrote those words on Instagram in late 2021 and am revisiting them to remind myself that I do actually love running – because right now I also hate it.
Small scars on the landscape
I started running in January 2017, at which point I couldn’t get past 2km without tasting rust in the back of my throat and debating calling an ambulance. (This metallic taste phenomenon is apparently the result of leaky blood cells releasing ‘heme’ – a part of haemoglobin that contains iron – when you overexert yourself. So that’s nice.)
I pounded North London pavements, dodging people, prams and litter. I saw a different side to the city I loved, noticing small scars on the landscape that became breadcrumbs leading me home. The city showed me a more vulnerable side as I took the time to get to know her better; a mellower version of the extrovert I adored.
Later that year, after moving to Margate, I’d plod along the seafront for miles. The rhythmic motion of the waves kept me in time with myself, the uninterrupted landscape soothing to a chaotic mind. Margate seafront can be a fantastically lonely and grittily beautiful place. On the long path from Westbrook to Walpole Bay, I’d go hours without seeing anyone, bumping only into occasional discarded shopping trolleys or abandoned plastic inflatables, and appreciating the melancholy so particular of old British seaside towns.
I’d underplay how much I loved running through fear of sounding like a smug running twat.
But I did. I fucking loved it.
‘Running time’
Playlist chosen, headphones on. Too-small trainers double-laced. Running muted my sadness over recent life upheavals and gave my mind space to breathe, exploring and stretching its metaphorical legs without being bullied by intrusive thoughts. In my book, This Book Will Make You Calm, one of the recommended tips is scheduling ‘worry time’ – an actual slot in your diary reserved for freaking out. It works by reassuring your mind that you’re not ignoring its concerns, that you are going to handle them – just at an appropriate time. Running worked in the opposite way for me, becoming my ‘escape time’. My mind relaxed when I put on my gear, knowing it was allowed to have a break, maybe even feel peaceful or inspired.
I’d follow Margate’s cliffs as they curved around the coastline, disappearing into a misty fog, and worry about running too far and not having the energy to return. But fuck it, I’d think. Let’s see how far I can push this.
And I did push it, soon running eight to 12km every other day. A distance unfathomable to me just a year or so before. I came to almost enjoy the physical pain. When my legs throbbed and my calves tightened, when my ribs contracted like a vice around my lungs, I’d grit my teeth and keep going, any emotional pain seeming to ease the more my body ached.
The Running Fear
But that’s the thing – my body did hurt. It was appalled. I didn’t build up to the distance sensibly. I barely even stretched. I would also reward myself after a long run with a delicious cigarette. (God, I miss smoking.) Inevitably I got injured, twisting my ankle and buggering up my knee.
Suddenly, where once running had soothed my anxiety, now it became my anxiety. I realised that I had come to rely on it so completely as a habitual method of head-healing that I was bereft without it. Running had soothed my soul… but now it spat in my face.
And that has been the pattern ever since: running, injury, recovery, running, injury, recovery, running.
Wherever I go in the world, I run – in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Spain, the US and the Netherlands. Even in bloody Milton Keynes. It grounds me in my location and makes me feel connected to the place. And yes, sometimes it’s dicey – as it is for women running on their own anywhere. But I kid myself I’m pretty street smart. Besides, I’m always more scared of not running. And so, when injury inevitably comes, or when I inevitably fall out of the habit for various reasons, I get The Running Fear.
The fear that this injury or funk is The One. That running is over for me. That the longer I leave it, the harder it will be to start again – like reigniting an old relationship: is there too much water under the bridge? Isn’t it easier to call it quits? Who can be arsed starting again with 2km runs having enjoyed the intoxicating satisfaction of completing distances five times that?
I fear that I’m not fast enough, that I’m wearing the wrong gear, that the online cliques of ‘proper runners’ are going to sniff me out. That one day I’ll be running and hear someone shout, “OMG, are you wearing normal socks? Are you carrying your phone in your hand rather than strapping it to your arm like a blood-pressure cuff? Are you meant to be huffing like you’re about to die?”
People post their times and distances online and they look insane to me. A sub 30-minute 5km is fast. Average runners complete a mile in about nine to 12 minutes which means finishing 5km in 28 to 37 minutes. Yes, 37 minutes is still within the average bracket. But you wouldn’t know that judging by the stuff people post online, like your pal Bill who got up from his sofa for the first time in 30 years a month ago and just smashed a 24-minute 5km PB.
God, sometimes I hate running.
Each runner is taking part in a different sport
It has taken me years to accept that I am allowed to class myself as ‘a runner’ despite plodding along at a glacial pace while listening to DJ Luck & MC Neat. That I shouldn’t compare myself to any other runner because we’re all taking part in entirely different sports – in exactly the same way as how running with other people is an entirely different sport to running alone.
I am not a sub 30-minute 5km runner, so why am I comparing myself to those who are? That’s a different sport.
My sport hurts and heals. It is low cost as I go outside rather than in a gym so only have to pay for my kit. It connects me to my environment. It taps into the much-lauded ‘green’ exercise mental-health benefits that I utterly believe in, it floods my body with feel-good hormones, and it soothes my soul. Some days it is great and some days it is awful. Some days I avoid it and some days I embrace it. It’s a dysfunctional relationship that, I think overall, I’m grateful to have.
It’s just frightening to know that one day it could be taken away. So, I guess I should enjoy it while I can?
Just One More Thing…
This piece is a call to action to myself and any other runners in a slump. Because right now, I am in a slump. Remember that how you’ll feel after you run (proud and hopefully a smidge happier mentally) bears no resemblance to how you feel before you run (resentful, guilty, exhausted, gross). You have nothing to prove. Channel that feeling of euphoria when your body switches into what I call ‘robot mode’ and it feels like you could run forever. Like you’re flying. And the calmness, ideas, possibilities, silence or self-compassion pour in.
That’s where the magic lives and that’s why we do it.
If you enjoyed this article, I’d hugely appreciate it if you’d consider subscribing or sharing it with people you think might like it. Thank you.
I used to run. Like you I ran outside not in a gym. I travelled a lot on business, and running kit was easy to carry. I’ve met some brilliant people, and even ran a 10k in San Francisco. I could do 5km in just over 15 mins when I was younger. But aged knees and torn calf muscles means I can’t do it any more. But I cycle. And I have a similar relationship with cycling as you have with running. I feel so much better for doing it.
Thanks for this Jo, as I sit at my desk debating getting out for a run. I think you have galvanised me - and, unlike you, I actually do hate running. x