Chasing pavements

Thanks to Coach Rio, Piolo Pascual and, well, Forrest Gump, running has more or less evolved from something you’d only do when being chased by the neighborhood dog, to a sport you’d actually do for its own sake. And if the surge in marathons, ultra-thons, fun runs, and even dog runs is anything to go by, then you can properly deduce that people are, in fact, enjoying themselves — memories of high school PE and baggy knee shorts be damned.

But that’s not to say that most of us don’t cringe at the thought of running. Because, at the end of the day, everyone knows that to run means to endure minutes, even hours, of burning muscles, buckling knees, the inability to breathe normally, and the hopeless, sinking feeling that the road (and your agony) is never going to end.

To understand the kind of mentality that pushes runners to keep inflicting this kind of self-torture, you’d have get out and run yourself. Which always sounds better in theory, I know. For while the health benefits of running are known far and wide (weight loss, cardiovascular endurance, better sleep, mental health), the fun and serenity you can reap while furiously pounding the pavement is not.

I should know, because I used to hate running.

Running for a sport — like football, for instance — was fine; because in between I was passing, sidestepping, attempting to score goals. But running for the sake of it, for the sheer pleasure of covering as much ground as possible, was madness. Pain and madness. I decided early on that football was infinitely more enjoyable (not to mention bad-ass), and that I would gain the stamina I needed just by religious training.

Enter college, where my varsity football dreams were squashed in the wake of adjustment pains and all sorts of newfound distractions. For the sake of fitness (and the fact that the UP academic oval is just too pretty not to use), I tried jogging… and realized shortly after that I couldn’t even complete a kilometer without shameless wheezing. When a middle-aged man with a heaving beer belly overtook me a few minutes later (squelching any pride I had left as an erstwhile football player), I vowed that the only thing that would get me to run was if Godzilla himself were breathing down my neck.

Then, a year later, I joined my first fun run with my family.

It was an act of coercion, and the experience was like something from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World — people in uniform singlets all stretching or jogging in place, all of them fit and athletic-looking, all disturbingly hyped-up and jolly at four in the morning. I ran five kilometers, and it felt like forever.

It was only last year, when I ventured to join the tough-as-nails UP Mountaineers, that my appreciation for running finally kicked in.

Part of the application process required finishing three timed runs, with increasing distances of 6.6, 10 and 15K. The rationale was simple: running builds endurance, and endurance means nobody gets left behind (or forgotten) — especially in the mountains.

To prepare for the first run, I enlisted old football buddies and runner friends to map out a training regimen. Over the next four weeks, I was to run at least twice a week, according to their arranged variations of time and distance. I was raring to do it.

But there was just too much homework, too many org meetings, too much sun, too much rain, too many other joggers, too little time… The big day arrived and I had done only half of the roughly eight training days prescribed. The only reason I made it within the 45-minute mark was due to one member literally pushing me from behind.

It was horrible. I was happy to have made time, sure, but the fatigue was so complete and encompassing that I fell asleep the moment I got home. Then there was the 10K to think about.

And that’s when I started to take things seriously.

I did not enjoy myself the first few times. There was always the feeling of dread, followed by a “let’s-get-this-over-with” attitude that effectively desensitized the whole experience of running for me. Why couldn’t the giddiness happen before a run? It was such a slow process of getting off my butt that I almost didn’t notice when I actually started to like what I was doing.

That was the moment when I realized I could run five kilometers without wanting to quit anymore, the moment when I stopped feeling like I was carrying out some sort of punishment, the moment when I felt stronger. Plus, I was getting pretty svelte from all the exercise, too.

For the 10K, I just let go. And if that sounds borderline Taoist, then that’s fine. Because ultimately, that’s what running is about. Surrendering to the movement, the sheer rush of energy, the boundlessness of your body… and then some. I’ve since upped the ante in the distances I’ve been running, and it’s one off my bucket list when I finally try a marathon.

Glorious adversity: that’s what the pain of a good run is. When it all boils down to it, words aren’t enough — the thrill of it has to be experienced directly.

So run hard, but run for yourself. Because if you aren’t feeling pain in every fiber of your being, then you aren’t at the threshold yet.

And to echo that undeniable Pearl Izumi ad: “If you ran without sacrifice, congratulations. You just jogged.”