Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Dear runners,
a lot happened since my last trips to Finland and Vienna. Buying a house that I don't really need has probably been the stupidest thing I've ever done so far in my life. Even more stupid when I realised that being a gipsy is indeed my attitude, at least for the time being.
Thank God, sad things never come alone. The grateful smile of Caroline is one of the most fulfilling experiences I have day by day.

With this said, I should be here to write about my running experience rather than my personal life, right? Well, running is about my personal life. No off topic.
The last weeks have been partially dedicated, as I said, to working in the house, working in the office and eventually maintaining a good condition by running in the forests and hills around Liege.
Before each running session and especially during many of them, however, I often felt tired, with that feeling of emptiness in the legs, not in the mood at all and kind of bored. Have you ever had such a feeling?
Life was never meant to be easy, as the lyrics of a song say. I do agree. But running with no enthusiasm can be more painful than interval training itself. I was even hoping to find some good pals out there who experienced the same at least once in their life, when, one day, I got enlightened by my own schedule.
Actually there was no schedule!
I was lacking the most important component of a runner's plan: the plan indeed! No target race planned any time soon, no training schedule, no goals to achieve, no weekly mileage to keep up to... Basically, I was just running. I don't know how good or bad that is. Many people just run. Many go out every day, after work or during a break. Some even at lunch time. I was probably becoming like those people. Nothing bad of course. Except that... it was killing me. It was like I was not running at all. That feeling of disappointment brought its consequences also in my diet, with a consistent increase of sugar, chocolate and frangipane cakes. Not to mention ice cream.
I am a runner who needs a plan. I've always had one.
To let things work out again I did it: I decided to run the Bear Trail this year. A 56 km trail with 1200 mt elevation gain near the belgian-dutch border.
I don't have much time to train for it. Four weeks are definitely not enough. But I have the feeling that those weeks will be intense, full and meaningful.

The running philosophy is the best lecture with which I deal on a regular basis. Goals keep me alive and remind me of one important fact: I might fail them, trying is already successful.

Keep running!

Tuesday, 18 March 2014



Whenever I am waiting at the airport I feel quite inspired to write something about me or whatever is currently around me. Or I just have nothing better to do to kill some time. The period I was travelling consistently, I was used to write a piece each time, in each different airport. I wrote about everything, my feelings, the person in front of me or the the new pair of sunglasses I got. I still have those pieces and if I ever organise them well, I could probably write a book out of them.
What comes to my mind today regards running. Hence this post. A question I have been asking to myself for a long time now is “why do I run?”. Every time I posed such a question I found something better to do, postponing it to a better time. Maybe there is no better time than this, now that my flight has been delayed - and hopefully will not be cancelled because than I should be thinking of something more than just that question. 

I am a runner since I was a child. When my friends played football, I ran. When we went out with the family on a sunday evening, I ran. When my mum asked me to buy the ham she forgot, I ran to the shop. I was just a factory of salty sweat that could burn shoes in weeks and t-shirts in days. 
I have never been attracted by football despite the numerous attempts of my father who brought me every sunday to watch the football match of some team I forgot the name of or, to be more specific, I never fixed in my mind. I remember my friends collecting their heroes aggregated in groups they called teams. 
For some reason that didn’t seduce me, at all.
In contrast I was attracted by the “red carpet” as I was used to refer to the track&field in my hometown. One day I entered the stadium just to run in the first lane, with the  shoes that my mum bought for special occasions like dinners with the family or going to church. 
As a child I couldn’t experience the philosophical beauty of running. 
I just ran. And I am sure it was not for fun. It was to compete. The idea was - and I must admit sometimes still is - to defeat a competitor I didn’t know of and I would have never met again. No purpose at all, one should say. But for me it was very simple: they asked me to run as fast as I could on a distance they specified the day of the race. And I did, with no discussion. Defeating opponents was the main purpose. Running faster and winning was more a a statement of possession, a way of confirming the physical strength and endurance.  
As I was becoming more mature, I could understand what I was doing. I even started giving my personal interpretation to running and the feelings that running transmitted to me started to change too. 
I saw it was different from the other games and sports that my friends were used to practice. I’ve never been attracted by football for the simple reason that it’s a team game. Scoring or loosing is a product of a number of people who, somehow, contribute to their achievement. Tennis and other sports with a direct opponent have always been out of my league, due to the desire of doing sport regardless the presence of other people. 
My mother usually reminds me of how much I liked to spend time on my own. I not only remember that period, but I am not surprised of the fact that today I can spend hours running in a forest, with trees and wind and rain and nothing else. 
The feeling of competition slightly disappeared as I grew up. 
I could grasp the joy of running alone relatively recently. 
Running makes me think. It switches off some parts of the brain that otherwise would stay on and heat too much. I don’t know if that’s a matter of neurotransmitters or hormones or what. I am not even searching for an explanation. 
Or maybe there is one. Running, as I see it, is the lack of dependence, the emblem of individuality and the proof that a man needs no hero. 

When I go out for a run, there are no complications. 
When I run, it’s simple.