Before there was running in my life, there was reading. I was the child with her nose stuck in a book, progressing to the teenager who hid books under her schoolwork, far too engrossed in tales of Middle Earth or Arthur and Morgaine to do much more than pretend to be studying. I read to hide from the world and to make sense of it all at once, to meet characters who would stay with me and show me new ways of seeing. That need to suspend my disbelief and become immersed in another world has never left me, but the opportunity to do more than snatch a couple of chapters in the evening is rare these days.
I read for the same reason that I run: I need to. And just as there are different ways to run, so there are different ways to read, many of which are dictated by the time pressures or mental capacity life allows me. The season of coughs and colds is rarely the time for a challenging read, when staying warm and not coughing all night is challenge enough. But there is a silver lining to the grey time of year, certainly now the children are old enough to not need constant attention: the perfect excuse to shut the bedroom door, cwtch up on my bed, and lose a whole afternoon to a book that I can read in one sitting. My son has named this ‘binge reading’.
There is an art to choosing the right book for a binge. The wonderful world building novels are usually too long, and those where every word needs to be savoured require more time and thought than a binge allows for. But neither can it be something throw away, a careless novel that leaves me cold and uninterested. The answer, very often, lies in crime fiction. Formulaic enough not to be too challenging, full of cliffhangers and red herrings to keep me reading, with the satisfaction of having solved a mystery at the end.
When binge reading works the rest of the world stops; the million and one thoughts clamouring for attention go silent and all that matters are the words on the page. Re-emerging into the world afterwards feels awkward, as if I’m waking up from a long sleep at the wrong time of day. But it is a good feeling. My brain is calmer, ready to focus again, and ready to face whatever the day throws at me. In fact, I feel like I do after a run.
All good books do this, they open up the world and give us a space in which to stop and breathe. They have been my lifeblood for as long as I can remember, my escape mechanism that makes the world more real. Reading and running sound so different, one requiring stillness and the other, movement. Yet in my mind they are inextricably linked, two necessary acts that provide a balance to the chaos, a means to understand it and to carry on. I run better when I have a book that has caught me, waking me up and making me feel more alert. And I read more thoroughly when I’m running well, my body ready for a rest but my mind active and interested. I intend to feed both these needs this winter, as often and as fully as I can.
I Run Free 