Last Saturday, I joined a hundred or so runners for the Haw River Island Ramble in Saxapahaw. A buddy of mine and I parked at a little Methodist church and walked up to the gathering crowd before the start of the race. We dutifully pinned our numbers to our t-shirts. Judging by their exuberant stretching routines, a few runners were here to win. My buddy and I were not among them. We lined up with the runners at the back of the starting line. The airhorn blew, and a dozen or more contestants sprinted ahead. I maneuvered past a few slower joggers and settled into my pace.
I know exercise is good for me, but my general attitude is that I’d just as soon finish and be done with it. This time, as I jogged along, neither in the front nor the back of the race, the sunlight seemed wet on the green leaves. The Haw River bubbled along to my left, faintly audible as the birdsong rose and fell in its own rhythm. I hit my stride.
I’ve heard friends talk about the runner’s high. I assumed it was a type of joy, but jogging is hard, even painful. Devin Kelly, a marathon runner in New York City, experiences running a race as being moved rather than moving. The passive voice can indicate an out-of-body experience, as if you were acted upon by another force. For Kelly, this feeling of being moved is like “a gentleness … that sits next to the pain.” He then quotes a passage from Ross Gay about how joy and sorrow are also entwined, rather than one existing without the other.
The Haw River Island Ramble was six kilometers, a little less than four miles. As I moved along, I had a sudden feeling of connection with the river. Like the water, I was not in a hurry. I was neither concerned with winning nor with my time. I was simply, sweetly in the flow.
While the race ended after three laps around the park, I actually could have kept going. But let’s not get carried away with ourselves!
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of “Little Big Moments,” a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and “Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems.” Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
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