Wow. It looks like I should turn this into a running blog, if the number of page views I got from that last post is any indication. Thanks for stopping by!
Or maybe people just liked the image of me as a marmot.
I ran twice this weekend – and both times I was clobbered with inclement weather. On Saturday I finished a long run in a cold rain, with salty water running down my forehead and into my mouth. After a run like that, a warm shower is such a comforting thing. Today I ran with a friend, and we were pummeled with hail for about ten minutes. We had a headwind, and it hurt. I pulled the collar of my fleece jacket up around my face to protect myself. By mile four, the sun had come out, my jacket was around my waist, and we were watching the sunlight sparkle on the water as we dodged the puddles on the trail.
That’s why I like to run outside so much. There’s nothing more magical than watching a storm roll in over the lake, or taking in the panorama of the Alps on a crystal clear day, or getting doused with water from a wave breaking along the path in a storm. Last week we saw our first ducklings of the year – eleven of them – escorted by their proud mama and papa.
But the absolute best thing about running has nothing to do with running itself. It has to do with friendship. I’ve known it for a while, but I just haven’t been able to put it in words. Today two things converged, and now the words are there.
For the past eight years, I’ve been running two or three times a week with a very close friend. We aren’t “training.” We don’t push the pace, we’re not preparing for a race, we’re not on a program. It typically unfolds like this:
Salut, ma poule. Et si on volait aujourd’hui? (Hello, chicken. Wanna fly today?)
And out we go. It’s as simple as that. Nothing is scheduled, but it happens anyway. (Even when it was minus 15 this winter, we ran.) We run our 10k or 12k slowly, savoring our companionship. We talk about anything and everything. Sometimes we disagree with each other. We formulate our arguments, try to make sense of what we’re thinking, feeling and doing in our lives. It’s never mundane. Sometimes silly, yes, but never mundane.
Everything that passes between us on those runs is cherished. Every word is honored. We both know we can touch on any subject, anything at all, and it will stay there, in the air along the lake and in the soft passage of our footsteps on the path.
Today on our run, after the freak hailstorm, we were talking about conversation. Good conversation is like two knives that sharpen each other, my friend said. She was talking about an evening she had spent in the company of interesting people. But I realized that she was also talking about us, and I said so.
Sometimes when we’ve disagreed, it has been hard. But I have never, not once, regretted those conversations. I have always come away from a disagreement richer, more aware, more appreciative of the fact that I don’t have all the answers. And we have both come away from those conversations with a friendship that is stronger and more honest for having been pushed.
The second thing that happened, in synchronicity, was an article that appeared in the New York Times about conversation – or more accurately, the lack of it in a world dominated by Facebook updates, text messages, Tweets and microblogging.
In conversation we tend to one another. (The word itself is kinetic; it’s derived from words that mean to move, together. – emphasis mine…) We can attend to tone and nuance. In conversation, we are called upon to see things from another’s point of view.
In this hyperconnected but increasingly lonely world, I realized that my friend and I have an amazing thing going. Thanks to our running, we engage in meaningful, uninterrupted conversation with another real human being two or three times a week for an hour or more at a time. We are moving through life together.
We wouldn’t have the same conversations sitting at a table over a cup of coffee. We’ve done that a few times; it’s fun, just not the same. We certainly couldn’t explore the same depth with status updates on Facebook, even if she used Facebook, which she doesn’t. And I have other time to run and think alone, or to plug my iPod into my ears and fly along if I feel like it.
For us, those hours of running are a suspension of time; we don’t have phones, iPods, anything. We are in a universe of two. We are 100% there, in body and in spirit. I am so lucky.
Here’s a thought: if you run, call up a friend and go for a run together. If you don’t run, call up a friend and take a walk together. It doesn’t matter how fast you move, just that you move together.
And let the conversation begin.
Image: mcbridejc
Soooo true AND beautiful!