Thinking and Running: The last breath

Today morning, during the entire drive to the area where I run, I was indifferent to everything happening inside and outside me. It is a 17 km drive (en route to work) and usually I listen to music or think of work or just look around and observe Delhi and its denizens doing their respective thing.

Today, I wasn't happy, sad, excited, angry; there was nothing, just silence and indifference. I didn't feel like listening to the radio or to look around. Work thoughts were dismissed as soon as they tiptoed into my brain’s verandah. Then something happened! Just a kilometre away from the spot where I park my car and then commence running, I felt a sudden gush of excitement, elation and then slight goose bumps.

This was surprising because I had planned a fast 10k with about 90 metres elevation gain and there was no reason for me to be excited or happy at that time. I was moving closer and closer to about 40 minutes of decent effort and pain on a workday, but to the contrary, I was overjoyed for those few minutes before my car stopped and I stepped out.

As per Sigmund Freud’s, Pleasure-Pain Principle (or simply Pleasure Principle), humans instinctively perform acts to seek pleasure and avoid pain. We are programmed to act in this manner since our survival depends on it.

Now, think about how many runs are devoid of pain? The pain referred to here is not the pain of an injury or muscle soreness; it is the constant pain induced by effort. Even running slow requires effort and there is some pain, even if the intensity of pain is low. Any human powered locomotion which is beyond a brisk walk for an extended period of time has some elements of pain.

Yet runners go out again and again, and endure the pain in return for something which outweighs the pain. A run is the exact opposite of Freud’s “seek pleasure, avoid pain” principle. A run is all about seeking pain. But it can’t be that simple and that would not make any sense since a run is deliberately repeated and that to in a routine created by the sufferer.

Towards the end of a run, in the last few kilometres when you know that the run is about to end, do you start thanking your stars that it will soon end and when it is over you are relieved that the pain has stopped. There lies the answer for seeking pain- the relief afterwards.

Relief is what a runner seeks. Relief is not a prolonged emotion like happiness. Happiness takes time to be processed, understood and felt. Happiness could continue for hours or days or months. Relief arrives immediately and leaves you immediately. Relief is the precursor to happiness and feels like an espresso shot of condensed momentary happiness. Relief is the sigh that you emit immediately after crossing a police barricade without being stopped when you’re driving drunk. Relief is when you enter your boss’ door and realize that you haven’t been summoned for a reprimand. Relief is the sigh that you emit when you get a message from your bank and see that it is a credit alert and not a debit alert. Relief is when your kid manages to catch the school bus. Relief precedes happiness and is a swift bird which flutters across your mind and then vanishes.

That relief, momentarily tramples your woes and makes you forget them. Maybe that splash of self induced amnesia from life, just when you finish, is the reason why we run routinely. Relief is a momentary escape from life before you reach the U turn and come back to reality.

In modern life, relief is hard to come by. Even happiness, mostly has to be willed. We have to program and re-program ourselves, to be happy, to think happy thoughts, to appreciate the small things in life, to take things as they come, to not worry and be happy etc. (all other mumbo jumbo from self help books to be inserted here).

Running provides relief; after every run. That last laboured breath, right before finishing is- the sigh of relief.