The rythemic beat of running.

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I've been regularly running for about three years. I always enjoyed it -- enjoyed the challenge more than anything -- but was frustrated with how little I managed to improve. When I was young I was a great runner, almost always the fastest girl; my 6th grade phys ed coach once told me I was a "running machine." So while I didn't expect to be very fast at once after a decade plus of neglect, I was surprised I couldn't get my mile time below 9:30. 

Then about a year and a half ago I found out I had anemia. I had been running on low blood cells for at least two years. I started taking prescription iron, and within two weeks, my mile time had dropped by 30 seconds, and by a month, a minute. 

More importantly, being able to go faster enhanced everything I already liked about running; the feeling of flight and fight, the rhythm of your body moving, seemingly by default, unless you make it stop: that rush of blood when you finally do, and how the air feels, in the same moment, rushing en-mass into your lungs. 

Around the same time I started using running apps to practice interval training, and the great thing about this approach to running is how it increases the intensity of each aspect of a run but also allows you to experience that whole process multiple times over. Because you run at a fast or very fast past for a much shorter period of time, you get quickly to that high level of intensity - but then you slow down long enough to recover and still have enough energy to do it all again!, yay! And really, yay -- because on the really short intervals, or ones where I just find myself with unexpected energy, my feet seem to bounce off the ground, hot air goes in and out of my chest with every moment, and the earth moves below me with such speed that I feel like I could fly. My feet rhythmically making contact with the trail vibrates like a drum, and the sweat rolling down my face feels like I'm being anointed. 

Like so many things, it was not until I started thinking more about paganism that I began to recognize this practice as not just something I enjoy doing, but a fundamentally spiritual activity. I remembered the times I ran angry or sad, how I let it fuel me and sometimes ended with tears mixing in with all the sweat. When I run I feel like I confront life; sometimes that means feeling helpless, most times it makes me happy, and often I feel an incredible rush of power, as if I am radiating all that stuff, all that joy and determination pent up inside of me, and I am indomitable. 

But always, I now realize, I feel connected to reality - to the environment around me (and you undoubtedly fall in love with the particular places and trails you run), to my body, which commands all of my attention and focus, and to the ultimate reality around us; what is possible, what is not, and how human beings and other animals exist in this endless dance with those possibilities and limitations. In short, running is a damn good way to press yourself up against existence and feel it throb through every part of you. 

Right now I'm having to run less, due to an injured and ever-finicky Achilles tendon. I'm supplementing with other workouts, including yoga which I also discovered pretty much in the same time frame and which can have very similar effects. But running is still my favorite way of finding this place of physical connection; and so every run I do take I feel all the more grateful for, because now I know: When I run, I pray, and I worship. 



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