The connection it can give you to the more than human world and the variety of wildlife you can see.
One of my favourite runs is the skyline and running to the top of Rainbow wood with Daisy (our dog), who seems to make it all feel so simple on four legs. At the top of the climb, lungs burning and legs on fire, you are hit with the most amazing smells of wild garlic and sweet scented flowers whilst you run through a tunnel of trees and beaming sun waiting for you at the top (well sometimes).
This brings me to the idea. When I heard the Bath Half charity places were opening I couldn’t wait a minute to apply. However, thinking about it it would not make sense to just run the day and doing nothing with it. Over the summer I have been reading Born to Run – a fantastic book to inspire the even the most stubborn of coach potatoes to get out running – and although no ultra marathon across torturous terrain in depths of Mexico lets have our own running adventure. One that can give us our own sense of connection and inspire ourselves to do more, to build a legacy of transition physical activity and get everyone up on their feet running, walking, and cycling and seeing some of the best and cherished spots in Bath.
We are born to run to help us survive. We are not designed to be great sprint runners but we are exceptionally efficient at long distant running, Chirs McDoughall explains in his inspirational book Born to Run. The surprising bit is we are only good when we remember the important ingredient… Love.
We were born to run for food. Now running I hope can re-connect us with natural world, friends and the whole community. A chance to step back and see the world for what it is.
Together we can make a difference and continue the good work that the volunteers of Transition Bath continue to do.
One of my favourite runs is the skyline and running to the top of Rainbow wood with Daisy (our dog), who seems to make it all feel so simple on four legs. At the top of the climb, lungs burning and legs on fire, you are hit with the most amazing smells of wild garlic and sweet scented flowers whilst you run through a tunnel of trees and beaming sun waiting for you at the top (well sometimes).
This brings me to the idea. When I heard the Bath Half charity places were opening I couldn’t wait a minute to apply. However, thinking about it it would not make sense to just run the day and doing nothing with it. Over the summer I have been reading Born to Run – a fantastic book to inspire the even the most stubborn of coach potatoes to get out running – and although no ultra marathon across torturous terrain in depths of Mexico lets have our own running adventure. One that can give us our own sense of connection and inspire ourselves to do more, to build a legacy of transition physical activity and get everyone up on their feet running, walking, and cycling and seeing some of the best and cherished spots in Bath.
We are born to run to help us survive. We are not designed to be great sprint runners but we are exceptionally efficient at long distant running, Chirs McDoughall explains in his inspirational book Born to Run. The surprising bit is we are only good when we remember the important ingredient… Love.
"Vigil had become convinced that the next leap forward in human endurance would come from a dimension he dreaded getting into: character. Not the "character" other coaches were always rah-rah-rah-ing about; Vigil wasn't talking about "grit" or "hunger" or "the size of the fight in the dog"/ In fact, he meant the exact opposite. Vigil's notion of character wasn't toughness. It was compassion. Kindness. Love...
That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what where the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle - behold the Running Man.
Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everything else we love - everything we sentimentally call our "passions" and "desires" - it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We're all Running People."
Quote from Born to Run by Chris McDoughall 2010 (pp.91-92)
We were born to run for food. Now running I hope can re-connect us with natural world, friends and the whole community. A chance to step back and see the world for what it is.
Together we can make a difference and continue the good work that the volunteers of Transition Bath continue to do.
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