Why run it again?

A broken body, frazzled mind, utter exhaustion and perished feet. All of that pain washed away with a complete feeling of euphoria as I crossed the line in 5th place, having just completed the Spine Challenger 2018 in 31 hours.

My original goal for returning to this epic race was to see how far I could push myself and see if it was possible for me to take on my time of 37 hours from the 2017 race. When I got round to signing up earlier in 2017 I genuinely had little sense that I would smash that time by a full 5 hours.

Im not entirely sure where that desire to beat 2017’s time had come from. I was pretty happy with myself after that first race in 2017. I’d done my first Spine Challenger in 37 hours and placed 9th overall. Thoughts of doing it again were the furthest thing from my mind as I sat back and bathed in a self congratulatory glow, a kind of silent, self indulgent smugness that I’d taken on a brute of a race and come out the other end.

“I have certainly found over the last few years that I use running as a means to continually push myself and test my limits to see what I can achieve. ”

— me

I guess it slowly dawned on me over the weeks after the 2017 Spine that its not about getting to the finish line of a single race. If that were it then you have to ask yourself the question ‘what’s the point?’. The reason I got into running in the first place, the reason I love it so much is how I use it to continually test myself. Lets face it, I’m never going to compete for places in any race I take part in so therefore the only competition I have is me and the course. I have certainly found over the last few years that I use running as a means to continually push myself and test my limits to see what I can achieve.

Winter conditions on the Spine race 2018

There are certain qualities and characteristics that I’m sure I wouldn’t demonstrate on a daily basis if it were not for the running I do. Qualities like the focus needed on long runs, the discipline and dedication needed for the endless training sessions, the determination you need to summon up for those tough sessions and the consistency you have to maintain over the many months of training. All these qualities manifest themselves through the running I do.

It just so happens that, like a lot of other runners out there, I surface these traits through my passion for running. Look around you and you’ll see all sorts of people achieving similar attainment levels of these characteristics through whatever makes them tick - climbers, musicians, mountaineers, artists, entrepreneurs, people doing their day job, they all have an innate drive to do what they do and through gaining self fulfilment through that, they demonstrate those same qualities and achieve their own personal goals.

Because of all this, I’ve realised running is way more to me than the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. It’s been a real life style change over the last few years to the extent that at this moment in my life, running, and all the personal characteristics it allows me to nurture, defines who I am. Does it feel a little strange saying that, yes, maybe but I think back a few years and I would be able to say with absolute certainty that it was my work that defined me, as I’m sure is the same for many people. I figure though, that life is too short and I’m not in the mood to let work define me - I enjoy my work, I do a good job but to be honest I want to supplement that with something that fulfils me in far richer ways.

Running certainly gives me this. All the behavioural traits I’ve already mentioned characterise the cerebral aspects of running while you could then argue that the visceral aspects come from the sheer pleasure it gives me. The environment we run through, the people we run with and the sheer pleasure that is attained post run, all generate base feelings that every runner experiences but find it difficult to describe and certainly impossible to ignore.