Why Do I Run?

I mean, it’s a good question. This weekend, I ran a marathon. Long runs are always very intense experiences and they leave me feeling…well, a lot of stuff.

While I do want to write about the experience of running a marathon (I go 42.2km so you don’t have to), I didn’t want to put all of those messy emotions on you guys until I’d got at least a week’s distance to work out how I really feel, and have something more eloquent to say than: ouch.

But running is obviously on my mind right now. I’ve done a lot of thinking this week about why I run, and I thought I’d share some of the headlines with you.
So, in no particular order, here are some of the reasons I run.

To lose weight

I know. I’m sorry. Please don’t judge me but, if I’m being really honest, this was why I started running. I was an overweight teenage girl growing up at a time when heroin chic was The Look, everyone was on a diet, and famous women’s ‘flaws’ were circled with red pen in the pages of the national press. Inhabiting a female body meant being forever engaged in a process of trying to make it better, and this mostly meant trying to make it smaller*. My first run was with one of my best friends, who I think joined me because I was running along the river bank in our town and she likes being outdoors. After that first run, we ended up back at her place, eating massive wedges of chocolate cake. In a nutshell, that tells you how successful running is as a weight loss strategy for me. In recent years, weight loss has become less of a motivation for me to run: partly because my relationship with my body has improved slightly; partly because I know trying to lose weight by running is entirely futile for me. It’s always there in the back of my mind, though, because you can take the girl out of the 90s, but you can’t take the 90s out of the girl.

Out of spite

At school, I was shit at PE. Actually, that’s not quite true. I was an excellent netball player, a formidable shot putter, and a pretty decent footballer. But I was also overweight, so my PE teachers assumed I was useless and either underestimated or outright humiliated me. When I started properly running, I was quite surprised that I could even do it. When I ran my first marathon, one of the thoughts that gave me fire was the fact I was doing something that Miss [I’ve Genuinely Forgotten Her Name] convinced me I could never do.

To F*ck About and Find Out

It started with ‘can I run to that bridge?’. Then it progressed to ‘what happens if I try to run 5km?’. Then a few years later it was ‘what happens if I try to run 10km?’. Then it was ‘can I run a marathon without dying?’. There’s also been ‘how fast can I run up that hill?’, ‘what happens if I try and run on sand,’ and ‘can I beat my boyfriend in a running race.’ You f*ck about and find out. You see what your body can do. Most of the time, it can do a lot more than you think it can. Although mine can’t win in a race against my gazelle of a partner. Recently, my coach has been trying to convince me to sign up for ultra marathons, which is the process of asking the question ‘what happens if I run for 20 hours?’. I don’t think I’m quite that curious yet.

For the runner’s high

Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. That is, I understand, the theory behind runner’s high.** I wish it were that reliable, and every run I went on left me feeling elated, but runner’s high is more elusive than that for me. Most of the time, running makes me feel a bit better than I did before. On rare occasions, it can make me feel worse. But there’s a handful of times, maybe 10-15% of all the runs I do, that are magical. Truly spiritual experiences. I can’t plan when they’ll happen, I don’t know exactly what flavour of euphoria I’ll be treated to, or even how long it’ll last. When I experience proper runner’s high, it’s intense and near-religious. I’ve sobbed with happiness; I’ve come to peace with traumatic events; I’ve felt a deep sense of belonging and…just….rightness. I’ve startled many passersby. It’s a kind of clarity and emotion that I don’t get through any other method***, and while it’s never guaranteed, it’s worth dragging myself through the occasional ‘ow f*ck this is shit’ run for the chance of that hit.

To explore, and to belong

There is no better way to get to know a city or neighbourhood than to run through it, and there’s a few reasons for this. Firstly, it’s quicker. Sure, you can walk around a place, but that’s going to take you ages. Running allows you to discover so much more, so much faster. Secondly, when I run places, I don’t just step out the door and go where the wind takes me****. I plot routes. I get onto Strava, look at a map, and start to get a feel for the shape of the roads, the placing of the green spaces, the little cut-throughs and the cycle lanes. I start to feel like I know it. Finally, as previously mentioned, running is often an intense (and sometimes kinda spiritual) experience, and having those experiences on the pavements and in the parks of a new place helps me to build strong connections and bonds with those places. When I moved to New Zealand seven years ago, running in Auckland helped me feel like I belonged there. When I moved house earlier this year, running helped me get to know my new neighbourhood and feel more settled. I also love running in the places I travel to. It feels like having a deep and intense conversation, like the geographical equivalent of swapping souls with the drunk stranger in the women’s toilets. This is probably the main reason why I run: it helps me find my people and my places. When I’m lost, running is the best way I know to how find my bearings.

*The past tense in this sentence feels redundant, y’know?
** As well as the basis for a flawless legal defence
***Possibly shrooms would do it, but I haven’t tried
****To be clear, there is nothing wrong with this method, but I am an anxious planner, and the idea of not having a planned route to follow makes my mouth dry

Read more at: ladyshambles.substack.com