The Sussex Newspaper - Great news for a great county!

Part 1

By RockSteady

This is a continual tale about running in Sussex and elsewhere.
How running motivates, inspires, tires, energises, relaxes, calms, and gets a person on a high that no drug could ever do.
What I see, feel and experience whilst running, how running can form friendships that are linked by a shared passion. How running can make you feel so close to nature but even closer to yourself.
How I think running is good for relationships.
How I wish I had taken it up earlier.
A journey of favourite runs, through all seasons.

When people ask other people to tell them about themselves al lot people will respond by telling what they do for a living as it that is what people want to know.

I like to tell people I am a runner. Of course I do not always tell people I run as a lot of people do not find this in the least bit interesting, unless of course they happen to be fellow runners and then it is a great ice breaker.

So what is it about running that makes us runners feel good and so different from those people who do not run or take part in any particular physical and recreational activity such as swimming, cycling, running and other sports that we can do either on our own or in a team?

I think I know why I run, I say think because the reasons can vary, and sometime I cannot think of a reason to run but I do because I can.

Often I have had to mentally force myself out of the comfort of my house to go for a run; I really could not be bothered with the effort. But once out on the road it only takes five minutes and that feeling is gone I am in my own comfort zone and the muscles are warming up. I then I will (if I have not already) start to plan my route and more importantly the estimated distance.

I came into this sport late in life like a lot of runners do. I am in my mid fifties and I started running when I was forty-nine. By this age we do not worry about what we look like in running gear or what people think we have been there and by now we have most of the tee shirts.

Since I was young I have always admired distance runners, they seemed to be in a class all of their own. I enjoyed watching all track events from the 100 meters upwards and like everyone else I have my heroes, and one of my all time running heroes is Ron Hill, and Alf Tupper, Tough of the Track.
As a boy I wanted to believe Alf was based on a real character.

As an eleven year old I was tipped by a games master at my school in Surrey to run for Surrey Schoolboys but I was also a little bit of a rebel, and decided I did not want to run when I fell out with a PE teacher who whacked me around the head when mistaking me for someone else. Yes, in those days teachers did whack you when you were naughty.

At the time my parents were divorced and my mum lived in Lancing. It was on one should day when I lost a gold St. Christopher pendant that broke away from its chain during a drama lesson. This St. Christopher was a gift to my dad from my mum; he then passed it onto me. I thought it was special, so special I did not want to go home and face my dad and tell him I have lost the St. Christopher. So I run away, yep, I walked from Lower Kingswood to Brighton, through the night in nothing but my school uniform and with no money.
That trip and the repercussions that came later is a story all of its own.