Running - a cyclical adventure that begins
When you first leave the house or changing room, and takes
You on a snail-whorled journey into time:
Jogging, trying to sprint, or steady with no breaks
It doesn't matter if you're fast or slow, you win
Just by being there, just by taking part
If you give up (not once, I mean for ever), then
You've never been a runner in your heart.
The training diary tells the story of the year
Often unseasonal - hot February, May in snowy rage
A day missed there, a long run stuck in here
And all the tiny figures on the page
Explaining to the reader (if one comes)
That you did six 800s on soft grass
On Monday, on Thursday ran an easy 10 -
These jotted hieroglyphics as weeks pass
Are only relics, like the bony parts
Preserved by tar, or mud, in a great swamp
To be pored over, aeons hence, by blokes
Who don't know what it means to be a champ
Even at lower levels, just as dinosaurs
Must have led lives that were as brilliant
As any we lead now; they must have known
Seasons and days as we do, been resilient
And felt emotions, if amphibians can -
I don't know,but they're not automatons,
No Lego set of flesh, skin, nerves and vertebrae
Created from twist-patterned chromosomes.
Runners are weird as well: or so some people think
Watching from cars, listening to football scores
Drinking in Thames-side pubs, wheeling their trolleys out
From Asda or from Tesco. Sometimes bores
Emerge in running too, anxious to spill out
Every step taken, every groaning climb
And sterilise and take the life away
From an activity, sometimes sublime
And sometimes wearying, but always good
To get back home from; in the shower, then tea,
Maybe a beer or two, the newspaper and bed
Or chat with friends perhaps; some will feel free
To go with them and stay out late in town
Or walk by starlight in some country lane
Before embracing in some hidden nook
And heading for the Land of Counterpane
As poor old Stevenson wrote so long ago -
He never ran, though Sorley did. Did Yeats?
St Cuthbert was an athlete, so we're told
In the works of the Venerable Bede.
Henry VIII could run a bit as well -
I doubt if many would try hard to beat
A king like that - he'd have your legs chopped off
And rip your balls off too, just for a treat
Or maybe that's unfair. Running became
A national service in the Inca times; young men
Ran carrying messages from post to post
Blowing their conch, winged on by sandals, then
Would pass the quipu on to the next guy
And so on down the line: that's what we do
When we share running with the multitude,
A noble subset of the human zoo.
