My first Great North Run was totally crazy for a number of reasons. It was crazy because I’d never done it before. Now it seems like the norm, but back then, running in a race with 35,000 other people seemed crazy. Running along a closed motorway or dual carriageway seemed crazy. But it was crazy mostly because it was the first time I realised that running was doing something not just to my body, but to my mind as well.
I had been on runs before where my mind started to wander, but I’d always fought it; I’d always done my utmost to shift my attention to things that I actually wanted to think about, things I wanted to process, things that would help me deal with whatever my body was physically going through.
This was different; this wouldn’t shift. I kept thinking about someone whenever I tried to slip into the Zone, into that state where all you can think about is what you need to do here and now, where everything else is blocked out.
Instead of finding the Zone, I found the woman who raised me – I was thinking about my gran. I kept seeing her face, hearing her voice, either willing me on or just being there – present. It was as if a live feed of memories was being beamed directly to my glasses. I lost count of the times I stopped myself from crying. It wasn’t until I was about a mile or so from the finish line, just as you start to go downhill before you turn left on to the seafront, that I couldn’t hold it in any more and I cried all the way till I crossed the line. It was half happiness and half sadness. I kept thinking, “I miss her so much, but she’d be so happy with me.” I had finished my first race, my first half marathon, I had a medal and a smile, and I was happy. I couldn’t walk properly for days. But was it worth it? Hell yeah. This is when things really started to change.
During the Great North Run (GNR), I realised that I still hadn’t mourned my gran’s passing, but I’d found something that might help me do so.
For so long, I’d run away from this pain, this feeling that any minute I might think about her. But now I sought it out, now I wanted it to come – I wanted to deal with it. My gran raised me when my mum was back home in Guyana, South America, working. She looked after me and my sister when my mum was back in London and at work. She picked me up from school, took me to church, cooked for me, bathed me and looked after me when I was sick. She was my rock.
When she passed, 20 or so years ago, I was in my twenties. It really did a number on me, as prior to her passing I hadn’t really had to deal with a big loss like that. No one really wanted to talk to me about it and I didn’t really want to talk to them about it, so it just sat there. Fermenting. Slowly bubbling under the surface. After her passing, I realised I’d have random bouts of real anger, then real sadness. Then the two combined. That just made me push people away and turn myself into this person who was devoid of any emotion, unless it was anger. As my little sister tells me, don’t forget anger is an emotion, it’s just not the one we like to talk about.
I was angry because I felt like she had left me without me saying goodbye. She was sick, and as the months passed and her condition deteriorated, I didn’t want to say goodbye to someone who didn’t look or feel like the strong person who had looked after me when I was sick. I couldn’t bear to see her like that. Then, at the funeral, when I saw her in that open casket, it was so final. What upset me most was that it wasn’t how I wanted to remember her, and I know that it’s not how she would want to be remembered. She was a fierce Black woman who loved me. And I carry that love everywhere with me. If she could see what I’m doing now, she’d smile – she always said I had potential.
The perfect storm
Published: 28 December 2023 runner’s high, what it was like to get there, to feel it. They spoke about it like it was some kind of nirvana. I wasn’t convinced. At least, I wasn’t until it came. I had had the waves of sadness but never one of complete happiness or joy. But now, now, now it came. Running connected my physical self with my internal self. I felt complete and now I could have this feeling whenever I ran.
It was some time after the GNR, back in London running through Green Park when I felt it again. I was doing a 10K around the Royal Parks. It was a loop I was familiar with, one that I’d always enjoyed. Though you were in the city, you were still surrounded by trees and greenery. It was autumn, the fallen leaves were everywhere and I knew rain was coming. As time had passed, I’d grown to love the rain because, for whatever reason, it made me feel like a badass. It felt like I had chosen to be out when the elements were against me. I heard the sky open up in the distance and just waited for it to arrive… and boy, oh boy did it arrive – it was like a scene out of a movie. It was as if someone had screamed ‘Action!’ and they had turned on the tap in the sky, just the right amount of rain for it to be emotive. And just enough headwind for me to feel it. I felt like I was in the film Hero, when Jet Li is preparing to duel. It’s like everything is in slo-mo but you’re still moving at speed. You get this weird tunnel vision, it feels like you’re floating and in some way your body and everything else around it is connected. Your heart is pumping subtly in the background, your breathing is loud but merging with the sound of your footsteps and the ground beneath them. All of this combined with the battering of the rain made for the perfect storm.
And that’s exactly what it created. That beautiful moment in time was when I truly realised I had more. At that very moment I felt unstoppable, like I could go on forever. And it’s this message that I want to share.
Each individual has their own journey to follow and yours will undoubtedly be different from mine, but, as with most things in life, you will also find many similarities: we all breathe, we all move and we all need love, acceptance and understanding. Whatever your reason for running, as long as you’re getting what you need from it, then it’s doing its job.
At times, it’s hard to understand what’s meant by ‘doing its job’. For me, it means giving you whatever you need at a particular moment in time. Some say that every run has a purpose and I wholeheartedly agree. There will be days when you need a run to blast out your nervous energy, days you need a run to help you smile, days you need to run just because that’s what it says on your plan. There will be days when you just have an urge to run, and days when others will ask you to come. There is no right reason, only the run.
I found that these runs began to help me with my life outside of running. Charlie Dark on how he became a mindful runner, like someone had plugged me into the mains, I was just buzzzzzing and filled with energy. Many of the barriers that I had spent years mass-producing and strategically placing around me were slowly but surely coming down. I found that I was far more open with people, far more forthcoming with information about my life. It might sound silly, but running helped me be a nicer person. I was more in tune with my emotions, more willing to listen, more willing to speak, but, most surprising of all, I was willing to both give and take HUGS. I was never a big hugger, it always felt too close, too personal, too invasive. I found that being more in tune with myself meant I was able to be more in tune with the world. That confidence and openness made me more approachable, some might even say more likeable. The little guy who had been hiding for so long started to pop his head out from behind the fence, and to my surprise he was welcomed with open arms, both by me and by the rest of the world.
The strange thing about life now is that it wasn’t always like this. I didn’t always know what was going on in my head; I had no idea, to be honest. I knew it was working but I hadn’t quite got to the bottom of all the ‘code’ that was running in the background. That was until I let go.
Since letting go, since my breakthrough moment on the GNR and the clarity of that day in Green Park, running has become my guru. It’s now where I go to think and where I go to see things clearly. Running gives me the confidence to do many things and, without it, I wouldn’t have experienced all that I have. How mental flexibility could improve your running.
A new beginning
So when people ask me what motivates me to run, the answer is: LIFE. Life is what motivates me to run, life is what motivates me to move. I want to live and I want to explore. I want to continue growing and that spark came from running.
Running has helped me to love, appreciate and accept myself so much more. I never thought that self-acceptance was something I needed to work on, but the more I ran, the more time I had to think. The more I battled out on the road and broke down and failed, the more I said THIS WILL NOT BEAT ME – the more resilient I became. Some might think that resilience is only used when you’re running, but you’ll see that it finds its way into the rest of your life, too.
I saw noticeable changes in how I looked and how I felt. It was easier to move around and I started to wear clothes that I hadn’t felt comfortable in before. This new-found positivity had all come from my improving health and my new relationship with my body. It gave me autonomy, real confidence about decisions I was making in my life. It improved my mental health, because those days when I used to feel like I couldn’t be bothered with the world began to come far less frequently. I began to grow as a person because I had a goal, I had a challenge, something to motivate me. I’m not saying I didn’t have a reason to get out of bed before; of course I did. But now it seemed bigger, more important. It created a domino effect. Through personal growth came more positive relationships, both with old friends and new – new friends I made through my new hobby, who were also on a journey. With their help, I gained environmental mastery, that feeling where you know your body can do anything you ask it because you’ve done it before.
Running late for a train? No problem; I’ll jog or, if I feel like it, I’ll run and won’t feel that everyone’s looking at me when I battle my way through the closing doors. And I won’t be remotely embarrassed, either, because I won’t be breathing heavily and sweating profusely.
These are the things that used to go through my head. Resting heart rate, so now when people ask, I tell them: I run because I don’t want to go back to being that dude who was lacking direction and real purpose. That dude didn’t know what was going on in his head because he was too scared to go in there and explore. He was too scared to focus on making real change, as failure scared him. Now my attitude is, if you’re not failing somehow, somewhere, there’s room to try harder, room for growth. Running taught me to believe in myself – and in others. It taught me that I need to take care of myself, to eat well, to hydrate, to smile, to hug, to love, to feel emotion. It taught me it was okay to not be okay and that it was okay to share this with other people. Running is my safety net. In short, running saved me.
Different roads
I'm not suggesting that what I do while running is for everyone. Many people I speak to run purely for performance, not for clarity or for feelings. Just know that regardless of why it is that you run, your reasons are valid.
There are days I find myself heading out for a run with no distance or destination in mind, and I just let mind and body guide me. I let my mind wander, I sift through problems, through feelings, I think about projects that I’m working on. And, sometimes, magical ideas will appear, or I’ll find answers to questions I never knew I needed to ask.
Over the years, I’ve worked on fine-tuning these methods with a few simple exercises. Exercises that have helped me make little maps in my mind. In the beginning, I’d struggle to clear my mind as I tried to force thoughts out of my head; now I let them pass and not linger. It’s like a map in my head or a web of connections, each interlinked but all focused on two things: peace and progression. Why not give it a try?
Either in your head or writing it down in a notebook, ask yourself: right now, today, what things would help to bring you peace? And progression? Then, when you’ve jotted them down, make a mental note of those things and take them with you on your run and think about them. You’ll find that the answers you were looking for or hiding from might appear.
As I’m sure you’re aware, there are also many people who run to compete for medals, times or records, or simply to run as fast as they can. I’m not saying that those who run for peace aren’t interested in the science of running or how fast they’re going; of course there’s some crossover. The difference is the order in which our list is formed.
How to run twice a day and why you should try it columnist and running torchbearer Cory Wharton-Malcolm on why he runs and why everyone should or to stay fit for another sport. Whatever your reason, whatever motivates you, neither I nor anyone else has grounds to question it. We should simply congratulate you for persevering. Just like life, the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other is far from simple – it’s an act of defiance.
When I look in the mirror and I’m unhappy about my body, I run to change it. Still, to this day, there are times when I catch my reflection and I know there’s work to be done. Regardless of how much work I do, the little sugar demon in me still calls, the lazy guy still says, “Bruvvvvvaaa, come sit on the sofa and think about tomorrow.” That will always be there; it’s about putting things in place to combat those messages.
When I look in the mirror and I’m overjoyed by my body, I run to maintain it. When I’m sad, I run to clear my mind, yet when I’m happy I run to celebrate my happiness. Running has become this non-negotiable part of my life that I go to regardless of how I’m feeling. When I look at the full spectrum of emotions, I don’t think there’s anything else that I do or have done that is there for me the way running is.
There are also times when I have no idea why I’m running. I just have an urge, a nagging, niggling voice in the back of my head that says, “Run, go, run, go, now, escape from this place.” I used to think it was because I was scared of something, but I couldn’t figure out what. At times, that feeling comes from nowhere, like a wave. But like most waves, it passes. But then another will come.
It took a while for me to work this out, but during this time I would say quietly to myself, FEAR NOT THE WAVE FOR THE WAVE IS WITHIN YOU. I used to say it to my long-time friend Flowers (his real name is Tom and I’ve known him ever since he turned up at my Published: 28 December 2023 West road run one Monday night and proceeded to run a sub-five-minute mile barefoot – on concrete) and, to be honest, he was the only person at the time who got what I was talking about. Everyone else thought I was being ridiculous or purposely weird. But I’m okay with that, and to this day I find that phrase so empowering. I guess it’s my way of saying I have nothing to fear but fear itself. Everything that I need to overcome any obstacle is inside me if I can dig deep enough. The question is always, how deep am I willing to dig?
This is how I find balance, this is how I maintain balance in my life. This is why I run, and one of the many reasons why – if you are willing – you should run, too.
Adapted from After my runs, I felt invigorated, I felt alive by Cory Wharton-Malcolm, published on 11 January by Souvenir Press
