Friday 17 June 2016

Slow runners @ Comrades

In support of all the slow runners in this world  !

People ask me all the time, "why do you run so slow ?"

It is a valid question.

After all, I've finished 5 comrades marathons and I've taken 11 hours and 50 + + minutes to finish each one of them  

What is often not appreciated is that going slow takes a special skill set.  It's not easy to go slow and yet finish on time.  To use every possible minute of the available time is quite an art.

To gain a better understand of this, One needs a special perspective on this "going slow" business

One needs A paradigm shift.

For real understanding to take place, One needs to think of running as love making.

Now, Love making takes skill.  Passion takes skill .
But Both love making and Passion require patience.
Loving well, requires time.

When one makes love, one needs to pace oneself.

What is the point of rushing?  Why should you be in a hurry to finish ?

It's the most absurd thing to rush through love making.

One needs to enjoy and relish every moment of the experience.

One needs to be slooooowwww.

One needs to make it last as long as possible. It is a skill which one needs to acquire and it is a skill which is hard to execute, Because One needs to take all the time in the world but yet come to the finish in the nick of time. That's a unique skill !!

One Starts with just the looking, then the touching and then the feeling !

One should spend an eternity simply kissing the curves and the hills and the valleys.   Exploring the curves and the valleys and the hills takes time and patience.  One needs to explore them with loving care.  Not a single inch of the landscape should be missed or ignored.

Beauty is something to be enjoyed for as long as possible and forever.

That is the philosophy One can and should apply to running.

Who wants to run Comrades  fast ?

Make it last for 11:56:37  !!
Now, that takes some skill and a whole lot of passion and a huge amount of strength  !!

Of course, spending all that time on the Comrades route leaves neither the time nor the energy for that other thing !

But that can be overcome.

All One needs, is a "tiny" sense of humour.

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