The Zen of Running

(originally published September 8, 2015. My original blog, on Wordpress, was hacked in early 2016. All of the original posts, through January 2016, have been re-posted here on Blogger.)

5 a.m. Dark outside. Quiet. Just me, my feet, and my thoughts. For lack of a better word, it’s a “zen” moment. I’ve been having a lot of those recently.

Warning: the following paragraphs may be a bit warm-fuzzy-touchy-feely-just-short-of-silly. If that’s not you, there are plenty of articles on the web about kitchen appliances, the stock market, and how to stain your deck. If, however, you’re at home with the less quantifiable side of life, then please read on.

Johan Larsson, licensed by Creative Commons

As I was saying, it’s 5 a.m. and I’m already hitting the ground running – literally. I keep surprising myself. Anyone who knows me would never think to mouth the words “morning person” if asked to describe me.  Yet, as I wrote a few weeks ago, the unforgiving summer sun of the Middle East has forced me to choose between early morning runs or none at all.

While I have not grown to love getting out of bed at an hour when most sane people are enjoying a good night’s rest, I have grown to love what unfolds when I begin to run before the rest of the world has awaken.

The air is quiet – all around me is so still that I sense the slightest sound, the merest movement. The street lamps offer the only light to break the blackness before me. The birds puncture the silence with their pre-dawn conversation.  And then I offer my own contribution - the sound of feet on pavement. I begin to run.

Slowly at first. I’m not yet fully awake, and I would much prefer a good cup of coffee to the twelve miles of putting one foot in front of the other that lies ahead of me. I console myself with the thought of how good that coffee is going to taste once I manage to get through this.

At first, each foot lands heavily on the sidewalk, laboring sluggishly to make some progress. I try not to think about the next two hours or the many hills I have yet to climb or the pain my leg muscles will feel. At this point, I’m content just to move forward, employing my “mini-goals”strategy that I described a few weeks ago. I simply focus on running for the next two minutes, then two minutes after that. Sometimes I just run from light post to light post. If I think about anything beyond that, I’ll be tempted to stop and ease back into the house for that cup of coffee.  

Taking things a few steps at a time is a good strategy to get through a run, especially when the mind and body are still begging to return to a comfortable bed. Good, but not ideal. I’m getting the job done, but nothing more. There’s no flow. I’m not, as they say, in the zone.

But I continue, nonetheless – light post to light post, minute by minute. I still have only the light of the street lamps to guide me. But I also have my own cheering squad – the birds’ conversations have swelled into a chorus (or a cacophony, depending on one’s view point).

As the minutes pass by, gradually, almost imperceptibly, the world announces the start of a new day. The street lamps recede, replaced by a skyward haze that is neither dark nor light.

My town is still asleep, but it is beginning to stir as the sun struggles to vanquish the haze. A paperboy gets out of a car to make his morning deliveries. The sound of footsteps not my own comes into range, giving me the satisfaction of knowing that at least a couple of other runners are also crazy enough to be up at this hour.

I am running northward – toward Jerusalem. City of faith. City of hope. City of peace. And for me, city of dreams – that I am running in this special spot of the world, running where patriarchs and prophets, shepherds and kings also trod, is as surreal as any dream could be.  

I don’t notice exactly when I stop counting minutes and streetlamps, but a moment stealthily arrives when I’m just running. My feet connect to the earth. My breath connects to the air. My eyes connect to the path before me. Everything is as it should be.

A bus engine revs. A few car headlights pass me by. Then, the sound of more footsteps – not runners, but worshippers moving purposefully toward the first early morning service.

I scale the crest of a hill, and as I descend the other side, there it is before me – the sun is shimmering, half suspended over the next hill in a swirl of purple-yellowish-grey light. The world is waking up.

An hour passes by, and I’m now running in a different reality. From darkness to light. From stillness to busyness. Now, it is the streetlamps that lay dormant and the birds who are silent as car horns blare and children laugh as they trek to school.

I miss running in the quiet, but I’m almost done now. A few minutes later and I’m sitting in my kitchen, luxuriating in the aroma of that coffee as I take my first sips.

Like the coffee, life is not meant to be mindlessly gulped, but deliberately savored. Sometimes step by step. Sometimes in a continuous flow. Running in the just-before-dawn quiet has taught me how easy it is to stop noticing the beauty of it all once the noise starts. If we’re not careful, we can numb ourselves with the noise. We can get swept up by the din. We can lose ourselves in the bustle that swirls around us.

And many of us do. A pity, because the bustle is not reality. Our true selves lie beyond the din. Our purpose for being can never be discovered in the noise. Sometimes it takes running in the quiet of 5 a.m. to realize this.

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I am running these five marathons for the amazing children and adults at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled. We have set a goal of $5,000. Every donation of any amount makes a difference. Click here if you want to help us get to the finish line!